No Bullets Fly

However distorted a person's beliefs and however broken the circumstances, there is still a potential for beauty, love, and heroic action.  In "No Bullets Fly", Sabaton tells the true story of Franz Stigler, a German pilot in WWII who looked through the perforated body of an Allied bomber he was about to shoot down.  What he saw was a glimpse of the vulnerable, helpless humanity of the badly injured crewmembers, and instead of finishing them off, he escorted them safely out of the combat zone, saluting them before parting ways.

It's easy to condemn and dehumanize those who are foreign to you, but branding them as irredeemable is just war propaganda.  It dulls our inhibitions against destroying each other, and it cuts off opportunities for the enemy to change and become a friend.  40 years after the war, the two pilots found each other and were close friends until Stigler's death.

So stop drawing unnecessary battle lines, because people get killed over those.  We should all be more critical of ourselves and our friends with whom we can have real influence, and more charitable to the demonized outsider we're told about.  Condemn evil ideas, but keep hope alive for those who've held them.