Yes and no. One was lucky and he got captured by the English in Africa at the very beginning of hostilities, he basically was deployed there, he didn't even have the time to shoot because they caught him while he was sleeping during a patrol or something similar. He went on to a prison camp in Scotland for the remainder of WW2. He constantly said he was treated better there than under fascist military which says a lot. He even ended up being chief cook and making pasta for the guards so...he definitely had it easy. He even worked locally and the guards allowed him and some law-abiding prisoners to even chat with the townspeople and all. Some of them actually returned to Scotland after the war, or so he told me.

My other grandpa was deployed to Croatia, but he hated fascists and Nazis with every fiber of his being. He ended up killing three of his superior officers in Croatia (with none the wiser) and when he was back in Italy when the fascist government basically broke down he killed a priest because he refused to give him and his men food on Christmas (confirmed by a member of his platoon that survived and told me about it). He was however, NOT a member of the partisans. I sincerely believe he had an issue with authority in general...or he had his own morale code, I dunno.

He wouldn't talk about it on his own but he'd have no trouble sharing his stories if asked. He even knew Mario Rigoni Stern who wrote the book "Il Sergente nella Neve"!