Respecting soldiers should not be automatic – they should earn respect, and most do not. We do not see much respect displayed for German soldiers killed in WW1 and WW2, and neither should we.
I certainly do not respect the Roman soldiers who invaded Gaul under Julius Caesar, nor the French soldiers who caused so much grief under Napoleon, nor the Australian soldiers who rushed off to kill Boers in South Africa, and blacks as collateral damage of a scorched-earth strategy that involved concentration camps, wherein about 50,000 died – about as many blacks died as Boers (which included 22,000 Boer children) – see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/dec/09/paulharris.theobserver. I am ashamed to write that I have relatives who fought the Boers in that war, and more distant ones who died in the concentration camps.
