KINDNESS ISSUE

by David Nuttle

There is an unanswered question about the benefits of using kindness to alter the hostility between adversaries, During World War II my family & I were kind to the 60 German POWs

on our farm each day to help train groups of 300 mules to pack before shipping them to help our military forces in Europe. These POWs were all German farm boys, on honor status and glad to be out of the war. There were no guards or guns and Gen. George Marshall, who had ordered this effort, had a contractor construct a POW camp near our farm where POWs had meals, showers, recreational facilities, and bunks for sleeping. My father Charles had been rearing and training large & powerful mules from draft mares and Mammoth Jacks and Gen. Marshall, my great uncle was aware of this and asked my dad to train and ship our mules & those shipped to us by farmers and ranchers all over the U. S. Since the German POWs were supporting this effort, we were appreciative and kind to them.

The kindness to enemies' theory is based on being kind to an enemy by showing obvious empathy, seeking common ground, creating a positive dialogue, listening to their side, and building mutual understanding. The whole idea is to diffuse emotions and end open conflict. In my experience, this theory works in some cases but not in others. The Islamic Wahhabi are too well indoctrinated, in my opinion, to respond to kindness. I believe the same is true for communists trained by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).

During my Village Defense Project, in S. Vietnam, I obtained GVN's (Govt. of Vietnam's) approval to release communist prisoners (Viet Cong & PAVN/ N. Viet officers) for a unique re-education experiment based at our base camp. This effort was a combination of the above kindness inputs, instruction on the difference between democracy and communism, and debate on issues related to the conflict in Vietnam. The debates did not go well since all of the communists had problems attempting to justify communist doctrine.

When I believed one of my communist students had decided to abandon the communist cause, we held a graduation ceremony, gave them a weapon and advised they would be assigned to our base's security team. All but one graduate accepted this assignment. The one who did not, accepted his graduation weapon and pointed it at me saying "I am sorry, but I am pledged to kill you. He had a great surprise when the sound from the weapon was "click" rather than "bang." We always removed firing pins on weapons as part of this test of training success. The lesson for me was that kindness does not always end the desire of an enemy to kill an adversary!!