Well, that and I think the senior NCOs had enough sense to know that the job had to get done anyways. Mature men with families will fight hardest if they are between their family and the threat, perhaps harder than even well trained young men can. If the senior NCOs had family back home and realized what kind of danger losing the war would mean for their loved ones, you can bet they would fight the hardest, dirtiest, meanest battles using the most brutal and effective methods possible. They say the Japanese fought hardest when we hit Okinawa and really threatened homeland invasion.

Most young men don't think that far forward, though. What you hear from the vets that survived hard battles is they fought mostly for each other. That makes sense too I reckon.

I don't reckon there are too many womenfolk that would willingly go kill other women and children if they were ordered to. Perhaps that is another reason why men are told to do it instead. I am fairly certain most of the boys that dropped bombs on Dresden knew what they were doing. I can't imagine any woman I know being able to face that reality.