[It's a complicated question, but Gene has an answer. If it sounds well rehearsed, it's because it's something he's had to tell himself since the first time he made a close up kill, when he'd shot the Jap with the sword coming out of the pillbox at him and Bill, when Bill had been half blinded with blood and shrapnel, screaming his name as the corpse collapsed on top of Gene.

So he's had some time to think about it.]

It's a war. [He says it bluntly, and he can hold Ricki's gaze when he says it, so evidently even if part of him regrets it, he's not ashamed.] If the Japs hadn't attacked us first or done what they did in China, we wouldn't have needed to be there in the first place. And if I hadn't done my job, a lotta other people would've gotten killed.

I don't like that I had to do it, but I'm not sorry I did.