Saluting the boys of World War II

© 2007 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.

Among the really great moments of our nation stands Dec. 8, 1941. On that Monday more young men volunteered to serve in our military than any other date. Each looked within and found a need to put country before self, even to the point of giving their lives. We remember Dec. 7, a day that will live in infamy. We really should celebrate the next day.

I am reminded of that while watching “The War” by Ken Burns. We see the boys of war when they were still boys and the men they became, if they survived the war. The men are old but that is what is fascinating about them. We see with their eyes the days of their youth lost and the battle that never ends until these gentlemen die.

Marine William Manchester wrote in 1979, “To this day I could, if called upon, pull the pin on an Mk. II grenade, release the safety lever, giving me four seconds before it will explode, count, ‘One Mississippi, two Mississippi,’ and then hurl it and hit the deck.”

Manchester’s book, “Goodbye, Darkness: A memoir of the Pacific War” is a must read for anyone wanting to get the flavor of something that is rarely even talked about today: the personal and human side of war.

These were citizen soldiers, like in all wars, who gave their last full measure and died, for the most part anonymously.

Relatives got the dreaded telegram, “The secretary of war desires me to express his deepest regret that your husband…” All that was left were thoughts for a lifetime of what did not happen and what might have been. Their loved ones marched away as the band played, and did not return alive.

Burns gives us some of those painful details. While it sounds impossible to humanize war, that is exactly what he does. He shows not just those who went to war; we also see their lovers and parents and children and friends. For some, the loss was only a separation of several years. For others, the body returned but the person did not. Still others left a hole in the hearts of their loved ones when they died in a far-away place.

We should all have gratitude

At halftime during one New Mexico State football game, former NMSU president Gerald Thomas, a WWII flyer, was honored on the field. One student was impatient and hollered, “Get those old farts off the field so we can get back to the game.”

Everyone around him tried to hiss him into silence. He protested, “I was not even alive, so I do not owe him any thanks for what he did.”

Those seated near him gave him an earful. I wonder, do those who were not alive 60 years ago owe any debts to these men and their families? I believe they do.

In our everyday lives we see wrinkled old men, not the young men that they once were. One of my friends fought in the Pacific. He had a tattoo that read, “Tojo is a dwarf.” When I first met him I asked him what that meant. He said it meant that while in combat with the Japs, he was never going to surrender. Few men in the Pacific, on either side, did.

So what do we say to those who went to war and those who lost so much? Do we watch these pictures and say, “Sorry, guess it sucks for you?” Or, do we hold in our hearts their sacrifice even though we really cannot understand? Hopefully, each of us can find in our heart a real gratitude for the boys of 1941 who had a tough job to do and did it.

The whole nation was at war. Women participated in many ways, but were most injured by the loss of their men folks. They lived the rest of their lives with that loss.

My father was a combat photographer in WWII, making landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Anzio. Consider one more thing about the Burns documentary. In the middle of the battles, with bullets flying, my father and his fellow photographers were documenting what was happening. Without my father’s original work and the fine work of Burns, we would not have any chance to understand WWII. That would have been our loss.

Stephen Ambrose summed up: “Then I think about those who didn’t make it, especially all those junior officers and NCOs who got killed in such appalling number. These men were natural leaders… What life was cut off here? A genius? It is impossible to imagine what he might have invented; we do know that his loss was our loss. A budding politician? Where might he have led us? A builder? A teacher? A scholar? A novelist? A musician? I sometimes think the biggest price we pay for war is what might have been.”

I am grateful to those who did their duty and those who also paid the price of duty. I salute the boys – and their families – of World War II and all our other wars.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.