Call of Duty: World at War Message Board  

what difficulty was it on? I played on easy only one time and one of the seargants (not Roebuck or Polosky) died by a Japanese bayonet so

Veteran

originally named upgrader:
I was on veteran difficulty.

I'm not sure if the difficulty effects who dies.

I just tried something different;

While standing by Polonsky's side;
I shot the Japanese soldier wrestling with Roebuck, and Roebuck died.

Standing on Roebuck's side;
I shot the same soldier, and Polonsky died.

All of this was on Veteran.

I'm defining "Polonsky's side" as the area of the platform on Polonsky's left.
I defined "Roebuck's side" as the area of the platform, right of Roebuck.

Maybe its a proximity issue?
(Roebuck or Polonsky lives, which ever is closest to the player)

Also, the grenade explosion occurred on Roebuck's side both times.

the weirdest thing was when I heard Roebuck screams "Miller", then I quickly shot the two Japanese on each sides, and the explosion still appear to roebuck,(by the way, I never see Polonsky death )

A better question would be, does the cutscene right after have Roebuck talking about Polonsky instead of the other way around, or you, or whatever?

yes: shoot at the japanese that want to kill roebuck!

After Roebuck or Polonsky die, the cutscene has Roebuck saying the same phrase that he said in the pre-mission cutscene.

It starts like:
"Everything that has been asked of us, we've done..."

If you didn't know already, Roebuck is the narrator for the American mission cutscenes.