Bombing Attacks

Your Oct. 3 article on the massacre of Korean civilians by American troops during the Korean War asked, “How could American soldiers . . . have deliberately poured hundreds of rounds . . . into the bodies of men, women and children trapped inside a concrete tunnel?” How is it that such a question is only ever applied to the foot soldier? We never seem to ask, for example, how could a young bombardier intentionally drop incendiary explosives on entire cities of civilians--Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo--killing thousands of women and children in a single attack.

Is incinerating entire cities from the air less a massacre because the soldier, the flyer, does not see his victim? Is the foot soldier considered less a soldier and more a murderer because he takes aim at a specific woman or child and pulls the trigger? The orders to shoot the civilians and the orders to firebomb civilians issued from the same kind of chains of command. Why are we shocked by one and not the other?

WILLIAM COLE

Venice