Me Thinks

I have been wanting to read this book for years and I finally did.  I regret that I did not read it while my father was still living, as I would have liked to talk with him about it.

After coming out of a horrible economic depression, the youth of the nation were called upon to step up and fight, and they did so valiantly.  Thousands more stayed at home, working in factories and other fields of employment, to cover the loss of the workforce.  The entire nation sacrificed.

The nation turned to its young to carry the heaviest burden, to fight in enemy territory and to keep the home front secure and productive.  These young men and women were eager for the assignment.  They understood what was required of them, and they willingly volunteered for their duty (pg. 3). When the United States entered World War II, the U.S. government turned to ordinary Americans and asked of them extraordinary service, sacrifice, and then returned home to lead ordinary lives (pg. 15).

The World War II years will forever be testimony to America’s collective and individual resistance to tyranny, its awesome and ingenious industrial machinery, and what may be its greatest strength, the common values of its richly varied population when faced with a common threat (pg. 183).

Looking back, I can recall that the grown-ups all seemed to have a sense of purpose that we evident even to someone as young as four, five, or six.  Whatever else was happening in our family or neighborhood, there was something greater connecting all of us, in large ways and small (pg. 11).

It is not surprising, I suppose, that the horrors of war give birth to a new generation of good Samaritans.  Young men and women who have been so intensely exposed to such inhumanity often make a silent pledge that if they ever escape this dark world of death and injuries, this universe of cruelty, they will devote their lives to good works. Sometimes the pledge is a conscious thought.  Sometimes it is a subconscious reaction to their experiences (pg. 25).