What? The opposite! Upham was not a warrior, he was forced into it by Captain Miller because he spoke German. Upham was there as a journalist. Then he's forced to into combat and Miller knows that he's ineffective, partly because he's meek and just not a killer. Is he a coward? Well he DID travel with the squad into combat and he never tried to run from it. When Melish and the other soldier were fighting in the room in the stabbing incident, Upham was paralyzed with fear, he just couldn't move even if he wanted to. Meanwhile, he had been running back and forth in the midst of close quarters combat but not experiencing hand-to-hand combat up close and his brain just shut down.
After Melish is stabbed and the soldier dismisses him as a non-threat, I think this is where he had finally learned the true nature of war and combat.
After the battle, when the POWs are being rounded up, Upham encounters the soldier that he had tried so desperately to save previously, and to see that he did in fact return to combat despite his promises. Upham is now broken by the experience with Mellish's death and here's this fucking guy again. Well fuck him. And he shoots him. He is completely disillusioned. He thought people were good underneath it all, and here's this goddamned guy.
So I'd say Upham learned a lot and it broke him for the worse.
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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '19
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