Submitted by Fred Bender, Jun 7, 2007 12:21

In this weeks issue, Grass writes "How I Spent the War." In reading it I couldn't help but reflect on what I was doing while he was trying to stay out of a Nazi court martial and being hounded by Stalin's tanks and rocket launchers.

I am a year older than Grass, and while all this was going on on the continent--the defeat of the Third Reich--I was learning how to repair radar at a Naval Training Center on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. Quite a contrast.

I also have a friend who has owned up to being an SS. He has never tried to hide the fact, and at this time of life I find it hard not to offer him the benefit of the doubt, that, like all of us, we were caught up in the maelstrom.

By all rights, I should have been outraged at the Western U.S. detention camps, but on reflection, merely 'went along to get along.' The enormity of the injustice just never ocurred to this teenager.

It would be interesting to hear the letter-writer's comments on Grass' TNY article.

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