There are several layers of 'truth' here.

First the children in the photo above were injured by napalm dropped by a Vietnamese aircraft by accident. The pilot thought it was a group of fleeing enemy soldiers and bombed them after finishing a bombing run of a town. The planes IIRC were all Vietnamese however the entire attack was coordinated on intelligence from the US.

Also I agree with you Kim in that you never know what a soldier has to face in war and what he is forced to do. Only they can make the split second decision and often it is kill or be killed.

However,there are other aspects as well. Incidents like the My Lai massacre [en.wikipedia.org] don't go away in public opinion for much much longer. These probably bear greater causality for the perception of US soldiers.

The net result is there exists no pure right or wrong in war. The entire situation is just messed up which is why it should be a last resort tactic only. For the innocents in the line of fire, and the innocents we send over to pull the trigger.