Re: I've been wondering...
Apologies is I've misunderstood your comment, I think I might have done, so don't take this as a personal attack if it sounds that way or if I took your comment the wrong way.
The question is, why is killing in war acceptable? I assume by the fact you're qualifying with 'not a religious nut' that you are looking at this from a religion-related perspective, but you haven't quite explained what that is. 'Killing in war is still killing only acceptable' seems to be the view anon was asking for a justification of, and you're not justifying it, just repeating it.
Killing in war is societally acceptable because if your society's soldiers won't kill, and your enemy's will...your society isn't going to last long in a war. It's survival of the fittest, so a group that makes killing acceptable is going to survive. That doesn't necessarily make it morally acceptable. Do you have a justification for why it's morally acceptable beyond 'because it is'? Citing the Jews as an example doesn't necessarily cut it as a justification, because they weren't necessarily right to do so.
And what other situations are there when you would consider killing acceptable, outside of war? I'm prepared to accept killing in war as potentially justifiable - but not as the only situation when killing can be justified. The logic that can be applied to war can presumably be applied to other situations, if such logic exists.