Members of my family have fought and died in every American conflict since the Revolutionary War, some in several conflicts waged before the Declaration was signed.
During the Civil War (which, for better or worse was an ideological conflict) the Ohio/Illinois side fought the Texas/Tennessee side, no doubt killing and maiming each other. Afterward, both sides joined together and rebuilt a nation, and some of them mated. Hence- me. Were my family, although unarguably ideological killers, murderers?
Legally, no. They were soldiers.
The movie Sergeant York poses an interesting internal conflict study, when a pacifist man is conscripted into service in WWI. His conflict is resolved in a firefight, where he dispatches German soldiers so that his men can survive. Is Sergeant York, a conscientious objector at a time when the term wasn’t even part of the lexicon, a mass murderer because he killed an entire platoon of men- that other men might live?
The only positive thing about all the wars I mentioned (and the endemic violent death thereof) is that they resulted, to varying extents, in a country where people have the freedom to express differing points of view about the nature of war and the men and women involved in them.
Such as the point of view of the placard-waving people who spat and threw things at my wounded uncle, as he was carried from the plane following his tour of duty in Vietnam.
And the point of view of my grandmother and grandfather, who cared for him for the six months before he could walk again.