by the standards of today. (which may or may not be the standards of tomorrow) I don't know how that is to be avoided.
A lot of the issue with American Pacific Combat vets and a lasting hate of the Japanese comes from such a vast difference in the two cultures. The Japanese were seen a particularly brutal, by Western standards, of course. In fact, the Japanese were brutal, by our standards, with each other too. Sargents were brutal to corporals, corporals were brutal to privates, Lieutenants were brutal to Sargents, and so forth. In training in particular and in service in general, the Japanese beat the crap out of each other for minor breaches of conduct, or apparently, in some cases just for the hell of it.
Most of the people who had actual combat with the Japanese at least respected their ability as fighters, but they viewed them as treacherous, sneaky, heartless and a little crazy. They did not play the war game by the same rules as Americans. Suicide pilots, suicide charges, mass suicide rather than surrender just shook the American troops to their core. American troops never could wrap their heads around how a man could intentionally kill himself in order to strike the enemy, or to avoid capture. It just didn't grok...
As soon as the war ended and the fighting troops went home, and the occupation troops took over, that attitude changed abruptly. A lot of American post-war troops brought home Japanese wives. The big surprise for the American leaders and troops was how cooperative the defeated Japanese were with the victors. Senior American leadership expected a lot of post-war violence and it never materialized. Almost as soon as the surrender, American troops were safe in the streets of Japan.