Voices of WWII Veterans: Home - Contents - Excerpts - Introduction - Preface
 EXCERPTS
"I thought about many things during combat and back in the rest area. My greatest concern, second only to being killed, was my growing callousness and insensitivity to human life. I questioned what I’d be like once I’d returned to being a civilian. Would I be able to shed tears at the death of my mother and father? Would I be able to wholeheartedly love a woman or love my own children after having lived with the expendable and vulgar natures of life and the ever-present probability of horrible death or dismemberment? I detested the possibility that my sensibilities might be deadened beyond recall, and I honestly prayed that this would not be the case." Fritz Thies, Marine Corps, First Division, South Pacific.
"We…went to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp (after V-E Day). The Jewish prisoners had been released, and a few German prisoners were now being held there. As we went through the prison camp, all I could see in my mind’s eye were people in those cages. I’d seen the released prisoners, earlier, wandering in the streets of Paris. They were just bones—walking skeletons without hair. Now I understood where they’d been." Norma Strecker, Women’s Army Corps, European theater of operations.
"I don’t know how our squad got through the shock of the accident. We were all sick about what had happened, but our schedule was daylight till dark, and we had to push ahead with our work." Chuck McGuire, U.S. Army, 187th Combat Engineer Battalion, European theater of operations.(After an explosion killed four members of his squad.)
"The officers were almost as raw as we were, having just come out of training. This sometimes showed up in rather funny ways, such as the time an officer didn’t give a ‘To the left flank, march’ command, and the entire platoon went right up over a huge pile of snow and down the other side!" Mary Dean Bruns, WAVES, Sandpoint Naval Air Station, Seattle, Washington.
"My homecoming was wonderful. Although my brothers…had also been in the Navy, we were discharged at different times. My parents cried all over again when each of us got home. They had been very proud of having three sons in the Navy during the war and were, of course, very grateful that we all came home safely." Geno Meneghetti, U.S.Navy, U.S.S. Saratoga, South Pacific.
"I have to admit I didn’t do too well on returning to being a healthy civilian. Though I was only twenty-one years old, I’d seen too much, been through too much. I felt overwhelmed with everything, and life didn’t go too well." Paul Parks, Army Air Corps, European theater of operations, POW.
"I was on duty New Year’s Eve, 1944. I knew my job was an important one and celebrating would come later. I noted in my journal on January 11, 1945, that we had a backlog of patients, meaning there were those who had to wait up to twenty-four hours or longer before receiving surgical attention." May Alm, Army Nurse Corps, 104th Evac Hospital, European theater of operations.
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