One story about a friend's family. His father was in the war in New Guinea. He led a patrol out behind the enemy lines and all the men but he were killed. He survived but never got over it. PTSD, survivor's guilt, whatever-- he just never recovered and went into bouts of depression for the rest of his life.
One other story: a classmate's father was in the German army on the eastern front. It was indescribable, he said. Just awful. When flying out to see his son he observed the size of this country. He said to me, "It was crazy to get into a war with the US. I flew over countless valleys, any one you could have put the whole German army in".
I also asked him once if he ever had used the MG42's. He said he'd never seen one but they had heard of them at the front where he was.
