A Real Tragedy

My great-grandfather was one of the youngest generations of the "War Children", as he was born between the end of World War I and World War II (at the end of the Great Depression). One of his mother's greatest fears was that her husband or her children would be included on the war list. However, my great-grandfather says "We were saved by the age requirements, since my brother was 15 at the time and I was 17. Plus my father could not be recruited since he had severe diabetes, and that affected his extremities".

This was one of his family's biggest reliefs, even though they were overwhelmed by all the bad news around them. The economy was very low again, and all they heard about was the Wall Street crash, the dust bowl, and many other tragic events happening at the same time. He knew something like that could definitely affect his family"We heard news about the war every single day. Some of my neighbors parents ended up being recruited... and later on, 4 of my friends were recruited too".

Although he knew the dangers of war, he never expected everything to reach such an extreme level of danger; as he says, "I had just woken up, like any other day, I went downstairs to have breakfast and as per usual I saw my father reading the news and my mother cooking. I turned on the radio while I ate and there it was... Pearl Harbor had been bombed; a dive bomber attacked, followed by planes that also attacked with bombs and weapons; the Japanese had entered the airspace undetected; and there were no major defenses that could save the thousands of Americans who died".

This was a wake-up call for the United States, they knew it was a real war and that they needed as much support as possible. A few months went by and they kept hearing terrible news on the radio. My great-grandfather says "Things got worse. I remember that I went to the street to pick up some groceries and many stores were closed. I can picture seeing my neighbor crying after opening an envelope delivered by the Government, saying that her husband and her son were found dead in the trenches. She had a dead look in her eyes, she was devastated. I kept walking down the street and noticed that children were sleeping on benches, little children who still went to school but were on the streets trying to find a way to earn money so they could help their families.

It was a new reality... millions of families were destroyed by the war, some wives kept waiting for their husbands to return without knowing if it would ever happen, while many children lost their homes and were forced to work in order to be able to eat enough for the day. What he feared from the very beginning was starting to become more than real. He realized that the aftermath of the war was already happening, even though the war was not over yet.