Warfront is tough now..but could be tougher
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2003 4:59 pm
As many on S2K may have surmised, I am a passionate patriotic guy. I like everyone are bombarded by bleak sad stories of the long deploymen of our guys and gals oversees and the struggles their families face at home. Everyday we here stories of how many were killed with every detail. I was reading some stuff last night and wanted to share this...
ON THE HOME FRONT: A WOMAN'S STORY
I was sixteen when America finally joined the war. I was young but I was not naive. I, along with everyone else, was afraid of this war and its effects. I remember clearly where I was when I heard Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I was sitting in the living room with my family listening to the radio that Sunday morning. We were all so shocked by the news. One of the neighbors came by to see if we had heard. The government was waiting until that afternoon to decide whether or not to declare war on Japan. I remember exactly what he said. "Why wait that long to declare war? We could have them whipped by then!" He could not have known how wrong he was.
All of the boys and able-bodied men went and left the women to take care of everything.
The war affected every aspect of life. Everything was rationed: food, gas, cigarettes, tires, shoes, sugar, coffee, and lard. I don't think we could have survived if we hadn't had a garden. Meat was a rare luxury that few could afford. There were some things that simply didn't exist for us anymore. Silk stockings were impossible as were purses because silk was used for parachutes and leather was used for shoes and other things.
My fiancé, Sonny Blades, was already in the Coast Guard and now he would have to stay for the duration of the war. I was afraid that he would be injured, or, even worse, killed.
Sonny and I were married on October 11, 1942 when I was just seventeen. He was home on a five-day pass and my brother Gean drove us to Jackson, Missouri to get married because there was no required waiting period there. Times were so hard that Gean had to borrow tires just to get us there.
After I was married my sisters Kathy, Rachel, and I all went to Chicago to work in a defense plant. We weren't riveters, but we worked hard.
Sonny was in the Coast Guard and was always on a ship or some exotic island. He sailed in the North Atlantic at first; but, then in January of 1942, his ship was torpedoed and was sunk. He was not injured and was given two weeks off. His ship was fighting Germans a long time before was declared. After the war, his service record listed his war-time location as classified because the U.S. wasn't supposed to have been involved in the North Atlantic until later. He was the last one to leave a German sub when they captured it. He had to go in and try to find the captain's log and open all the valves and portholes. I didn't know about this until after the war. He eventually ended up being stationed int eh Virgin Islands. He would write me every day and send lots of pictures. Sometimes though I wouldn't get a letter for days, or even weeks and then I would be a whole bundle all at once. Time in between letters was tense to say the least.
The only time I didn't worry about him was when he was on his way home. He would hitchhike from the nearest port. Hitchhiking was not dangerous like it is now. TO give a service man a lift on his way home a ride was an honor. They were given priority over everyone. In trains, they were given sleeping berths first. All food went to them. The country was fed after its soldiers. Still no one resented this. It was a different time.
I have heard others say that to them the war seemed far away and distant. To me it was very real. Every day you saw someone who had lost their son, their husband, their father. Whether you went or not you were still affected. If an otherwise healthy boy was born with flat feet he could not go and would be scorned ever after as if he had dodged the draft. Grieving mothers could not understand why theirs must die when one who seemed so healthy was so far away from battle.
I'll never forget how everything looked. There was a star in almost every window. If someone if you family was in the war, you had a blue one; and, if that someone had died in the war, you had a gold one. More than anything it was the lack of things you noticed. There were no cars at the gas station. Gas was so expensive that most people just put up their cars up in their barns because they couldn't afford to run them.
No one really knew what was going on over there. The only newsreels one saw was in the movie theater. Getting to see a movie was rare and then the newsreels were produced by the government to keep up moral. They didn't want people on the home front to see how bad it really was. Sonny's letters were censored and so were his pictures. They would either cut out or mark out anything that might reveal where he was stationed. I didn't hear about half the things that happened to him until the war was over.
Luckily he was reassigned to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania eight months before the end of the war. I moved there to be with him. I stayed there until July when I became pregnant with our first child and decided to move back home to have the baby. I wanted Sonny to come back with me but he was on active duty until the end of the war.
The war ended on October 6, 1945. Sonny was home in just enough time to see his eldest daughter Sally Maureen born.
The war was a horrible thing that I will never forget. I hope no one ever forgets why we fought.
As told by
AFTON VIRGINIA BLADES
How tough is it now? Its tough for all those involved. I just like us to put things in perspective during a difficult time. We have suffered casualties in Iraq. From 1942-1944, on average, we lost 306 Americans a day. It wasn't in the paper, only with the Western Union and the telegraph families wish they would never recieve. God Bless our soldiers on this Veterans Day and may we never lose perspective.
Please answer the poll and tell us something about friends or relatives serving. I for one would like to hear about them.
ON THE HOME FRONT: A WOMAN'S STORY
I was sixteen when America finally joined the war. I was young but I was not naive. I, along with everyone else, was afraid of this war and its effects. I remember clearly where I was when I heard Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I was sitting in the living room with my family listening to the radio that Sunday morning. We were all so shocked by the news. One of the neighbors came by to see if we had heard. The government was waiting until that afternoon to decide whether or not to declare war on Japan. I remember exactly what he said. "Why wait that long to declare war? We could have them whipped by then!" He could not have known how wrong he was.
All of the boys and able-bodied men went and left the women to take care of everything.
The war affected every aspect of life. Everything was rationed: food, gas, cigarettes, tires, shoes, sugar, coffee, and lard. I don't think we could have survived if we hadn't had a garden. Meat was a rare luxury that few could afford. There were some things that simply didn't exist for us anymore. Silk stockings were impossible as were purses because silk was used for parachutes and leather was used for shoes and other things.
My fiancé, Sonny Blades, was already in the Coast Guard and now he would have to stay for the duration of the war. I was afraid that he would be injured, or, even worse, killed.
Sonny and I were married on October 11, 1942 when I was just seventeen. He was home on a five-day pass and my brother Gean drove us to Jackson, Missouri to get married because there was no required waiting period there. Times were so hard that Gean had to borrow tires just to get us there.
After I was married my sisters Kathy, Rachel, and I all went to Chicago to work in a defense plant. We weren't riveters, but we worked hard.
Sonny was in the Coast Guard and was always on a ship or some exotic island. He sailed in the North Atlantic at first; but, then in January of 1942, his ship was torpedoed and was sunk. He was not injured and was given two weeks off. His ship was fighting Germans a long time before was declared. After the war, his service record listed his war-time location as classified because the U.S. wasn't supposed to have been involved in the North Atlantic until later. He was the last one to leave a German sub when they captured it. He had to go in and try to find the captain's log and open all the valves and portholes. I didn't know about this until after the war. He eventually ended up being stationed int eh Virgin Islands. He would write me every day and send lots of pictures. Sometimes though I wouldn't get a letter for days, or even weeks and then I would be a whole bundle all at once. Time in between letters was tense to say the least.
The only time I didn't worry about him was when he was on his way home. He would hitchhike from the nearest port. Hitchhiking was not dangerous like it is now. TO give a service man a lift on his way home a ride was an honor. They were given priority over everyone. In trains, they were given sleeping berths first. All food went to them. The country was fed after its soldiers. Still no one resented this. It was a different time.
I have heard others say that to them the war seemed far away and distant. To me it was very real. Every day you saw someone who had lost their son, their husband, their father. Whether you went or not you were still affected. If an otherwise healthy boy was born with flat feet he could not go and would be scorned ever after as if he had dodged the draft. Grieving mothers could not understand why theirs must die when one who seemed so healthy was so far away from battle.
I'll never forget how everything looked. There was a star in almost every window. If someone if you family was in the war, you had a blue one; and, if that someone had died in the war, you had a gold one. More than anything it was the lack of things you noticed. There were no cars at the gas station. Gas was so expensive that most people just put up their cars up in their barns because they couldn't afford to run them.
No one really knew what was going on over there. The only newsreels one saw was in the movie theater. Getting to see a movie was rare and then the newsreels were produced by the government to keep up moral. They didn't want people on the home front to see how bad it really was. Sonny's letters were censored and so were his pictures. They would either cut out or mark out anything that might reveal where he was stationed. I didn't hear about half the things that happened to him until the war was over.
Luckily he was reassigned to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania eight months before the end of the war. I moved there to be with him. I stayed there until July when I became pregnant with our first child and decided to move back home to have the baby. I wanted Sonny to come back with me but he was on active duty until the end of the war.
The war ended on October 6, 1945. Sonny was home in just enough time to see his eldest daughter Sally Maureen born.
The war was a horrible thing that I will never forget. I hope no one ever forgets why we fought.
As told by
AFTON VIRGINIA BLADES
How tough is it now? Its tough for all those involved. I just like us to put things in perspective during a difficult time. We have suffered casualties in Iraq. From 1942-1944, on average, we lost 306 Americans a day. It wasn't in the paper, only with the Western Union and the telegraph families wish they would never recieve. God Bless our soldiers on this Veterans Day and may we never lose perspective.
Please answer the poll and tell us something about friends or relatives serving. I for one would like to hear about them.
