Of course, white GIs were men of their times. Note that whites from the South and North felt the same way, and in nearly equal numbers. They unapologetically believed in preserving America's white European character and maintaining segregation and traditional roles for women.

Those views, of course, are “racist” and “sexist,” and if openly expressed today would absolutely exclude those men from military service.

While Ruane’s piece maintains a facade of neutrality, note how it began: with a white soldier’s advocating “white supremacy,” not with the black soldier’s calling whites “crackers.” Whites, you see, are always the villains.

Besides that, though, consider this: the story continues the larger effort to diminish the dominant, heroic role white Americans’ played in winning World II, and to retcon the war to help erase white history altogether.

After all, the white soldier’s remarks Ruane featured in his lede were one of the “uncensored results of dozens of surveys the service administered to soldiers during the war.”

Message: we may have won the war, but the important thing to remember is that whites were racists!

Don’t be surprised if when and if future historians and journalists whitewash the legacy of Imperial Japan—a voraciously expansionist power that committed scores of atrocities prior to and during World War II—and portray it in a more positive light [Japan’s Prelude to Pearl Harbor, by Roger McGrath, Chronicles, December 2013].