Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
The father of a freind was a 20mm Oerlikon gunner on a ship in the Pacific in WWII. A natural born gunner like the man said in Twelvo O'Clock High. They were under Japanese air attack and Japanese plane flew by his gun very very close heading for a nearby ship. My freind's father swung the gun to kill the pilot, did so and splashed the plane immediately. The plane was close enought to see the pilot clearly and he always felt bad about what he did, not about splashing the plane, but about aiming for the pilot instead of the engine. It didn't matter that the quickest and surest way to down the plane was to get the pilot. He still felt bad.

So I believe that Marlantes sees that and maybe his way of looking at the thing would have helped that one particular Oerlikon gunner, then or later on.
OK, what Marlantes said was:

"The ideal response to killing in war should be one similar to a mercy killing, sadness mingled with respect."

How do you teach this? Where does the 'mercy killing' angle come from? When the enemy gives you a hard time killing them it is nowhere near a 'mercy killing' which insinuates you assisting a helpless person on their way. If they have given a good account of themselves then some grudging respect would follow.