TASOWN on Nostr: “Men trained under such discipline were apt to emerge with blunted sensibility, a ...

“Men trained under such discipline were apt to emerge with blunted sensibility, a callous indifference to suffering, whether in themselves or in others, and an unfeeling disregard for the horrible and squalid aspects of war. One of my machine-gun sergeants told me with great satisfaction how his comrades had contrived to spend a comfortable night in the open in pouring rain after an attack in the Casa de Campo: the ground, he explained, was waterlogged but fortunately (sic) it was littered with corpses; these they collected, arranged them in rows, and laid down on them, covering themselves with their greatcoats. FitzPatrick, after the capture of Talavera by the 5th Bandera, found a legionary hammering at the face of a dead militiaman with the butt of his rifle; when Fitzpatrick pointed out that the man was dead, the legionary answered serenely, 'I know sir, but look! He has some fine gold teeth.”
- Peter Kemp “A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War”