Dear Readers: This was composed in 2011 for the 70th Anniversary; I felt it appropriate to repeat it once again, as we who came after this day of infamy need to know our country’s history or be condemned to repeat it.
Bless our Veterans and Military Families and remember them year round! May God continue to Bless America and its people, among the most giving and caring on this earth. – Annette
Family history in our home was commonly categorized into three eras that everyone from the Greatest Generation on down ultimately understood: “before the war”, “during the war”, and “after the war”.
Like my mother, I always loved reading history. Her passion for listening to others’ stories became mine also. Mentors, neighbors and relatives related some tidbits from their personal experiences; other facts below were picked up from history lessons:
A young kid was working as a bag boy at a local market on the East Coast. The news came over the radio: Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The young kid told his boss,
Well, we know one thing for sure: pineapples are going to go up in price!
Once this kid became of age, he joined the military, fulfilling a career in the Air Force.
A little girl came home after school, saw the photo of a man in uniform on the mantle, and began crying… the photo was actually that of her uncle, her daddy’s younger brother, but he looked enough like her daddy to shake her little soul and make her believe: Daddy had gone to war!
Many women went to work in the factories; the iconic poster Rosie the Riveter salutes their contributions during the war years…
Military wives stayed behind, keeping the house and raising their young children…
Some men hunted and brought home extra meat for their own tables and their extended families’ tables as well…
Men too old to enlist left familiar workplace jobs, choosing to work “for the war effort”…
Scrap metal was collected…
Hollywood leading men and women either enlisted and/or made feature releases, using their notoriety to sell War Bonds for the War Department…
In addition to radio and newspaper, newsreels informed the public of the latest war news; Victory At Sea was one such news reel series…
Believing Loose Lips Sink Ships, cryptic messages, codes, and other safeguards were set into place and honored by all military and civilian citizens, including Hollywood’s movie moguls and newspaper journalists.
The neighborhood kid accidentally hit his little friend in the eye. The eye quickly started to darken; he was obviously going to go home with one good shiner! The neighborhood kid’s mother used a frozen steak from the freezer as an ice pack on the little friend’s eye and escorted him home. Using a steak for a poultice! During wartime? The little friend’s family was in awe…
When his father was killed in a freak work accident on the docks, the only son was called home from overseas; he arrived home in time to attend his father’s funeral. In his eyes, he was one of the luckier ones, having only suffered some trench foot; but as he remarked, at least he came home alive and in one piece.
Some WWII Widows were fortunate enough to meet men who came home and were willing to raise their fellow brothers-in-arms’ sons and daughters…
A little girl walked out the door one day, telling her widowed mother that she was going to search “for a new daddy”…
Growing up in the late fifties and sixties, I dusted Mom’s mantel space which was often filled with family photos. Those extras that were older but still cherished were placed inside a dining room sideboard drawer. We could easily access these so pulled them out on occasion to view. Professional wedding photographs, twenty-first birthday photos, and yellowed news clippings of friends in uniform were fascinating to read.
There was a particular uncle that we knew only from his wedding photo; he had been killed during the war. We used to visit his grave and leave flowers. Daddy was bothered and always uncomfortable about my uncle’s death, even mentioning that he didn’t believe the remains sent home actually belonged to his brother-in-law.
Mom was more pragmatic: it didn’t matter…they belonged to a soldier. We would leave flowers always.