Mr. Stigler got hate mail and phone calls from Germans calling him a traitor. He got hate mail and calls from Americans and Canadians calling him a filthy Nazi and telling him to go back to Germany. My father flew C-47s dropping paratroopers in European combat zones. He was shot down behind German lines and spent more than a week with the Dutch Underground evading German troops who were actively looking for him and getting back to Allied territory. He had battle fatigue and died relatively young of cancer, an illness more prevalent in men who have seen active combat. He forgave the Germans. He met Germans who had been Nazis, or at least fought against the Allies, who forgave the men who did such damage to Dresden, Cologne, Nuremberg and other bomb ravaged cities. You are a hater and I hate to think of your political affiliations with that opinion. Crawl back under the rock you came from.

@@Ancient_War You can look at it several ways, Stigler showed mercy and allowed them to go home, and he felt good about that being chivalrous. The other way to look at it, by him showing pity the crew were recycled and were then flying missions over his country killing his own people. He tried to do the decent thing and allow them to surrender by landing or flying to a neutral country. Charlie chose neither, he flew on and told his gunner to shoot him down. when Stigler returned to his base and if they knew what had happened it could have ended badly for him. I'm sure you have seen saving private ryan? The machine gunner they let go after killing one of their mates, he was recycled and he ended up killing several more. War is about killing, Stigler showed mercy, Charlie threw that offer in his face and tried to kill him. Stigler in my opinion should have shot him down, i would have. You talk about forgiveness, i think you will find that many veterans forgave their enemies to save themselves. I know of many British soldiers who were prisoners of the Japanese, they were treated horrifically, many went to Japan many years after the war and actually met some of the guards that tortured them, in a big reunion they apologised to each other, they did it to help themselves. A good friend i used to visit was one of them, he said he shook the guards hand and forgave him, the guard apologised. I asked did it help, he said in a way it did, but he would have preferred to strangle the bastard.

@Notchrhino55 I can't say you're wrong, even though I agree with my father. But my dad killed Germans. Germans killed his mates. War is about killing. My dad tried to meet German first cousins in 1951, but was prohibited because they were still staunch Nazis. Ukrainian soldiers don't talk about forgiving Russians. Captured Russian soldiers want the Ukrainians' forgiveness. Thus, has it been since one man looked at something another owned and lusted for it. I'm old enough and tired enough of it, that I just wish it could be otherwise, that more forgiveness and mercy were at play in the world. Then again, I'd be one of the first to pick up a gun in defense of those I love, so what does that say about me? People are messy.

@@Ancient_War The world is not a perfect place and neither are the people in it. Most people want to live peaceful lives. However, there are plenty arseholes in the world who are greedy for money, possessions, power, control. And they prevent peaceful living. You also have the selfish inconsiderate people you bump into every day, noisy neighbours, someone letting their dog take a dump on your front lawn and don't pick it up. Someone pushing in front of you in a queue. That can all end in conflict, just on a smaller scale. You try to be reasonable in life, alas some folks just don't want to be. You have to stand up to a bully, otherwise they make your life hell. Regarding the the video, i think Stigler was being more than reasonable, he offered a chance to surrender, it was thrown in his face, personally i think Charlie was a fool, he was lucky to have survived that encounter.

@Notchrhino55 He wouldn't have except for a perfect storm of, let's call them coincidences. The fact Stigler's brother had recently died, he had been taught not to shoot men in parachutes (my father saw this often), and Brown's plane was shot up so badly. But for that, Stigler would have gotten his Knight's Cross. And, yes, people are bellicose and grabbing over the most minor things, little say the big ones. The world today is little different than the world of 2,000 years ago. Granted, there is no World War or Roman Empire, but people and their motivations are no different. Which is why I love studying history. You see not only the patterns but the similarities. The cultural differences and the reasons lost to time are just the icing on the cake. Cheers.