Dave and Neal:
How fitting to read your comments today, Memorial Day. I was a small child
when the war broke out, but I well remember listening to the radio with my
parents on that fateful Sunday, when the regular programming was interrupted
by a speech from President Roosevelt, announcing that Pearl Harbor had been
attacked. We were stunned.
We lived in Los Angeles at that time, and I had just days before attended a
birthday party for one of my first-grade classmates, a sweet little Japanese
girl. She was immediately missing from my classroom - we were told that all
of the Japanese were being interred. I never found out where her family was
sent, as we moved from the area shortly after the war began.
My father did not serve in the war, because he was a diabetic and 4F. In
fact, he only discovered his diabetes when he went for his Army physical. He
died at age 57, having spent his last few years blind as a result of the
diabetes. His only brother and his brother-in-law each joined the Navy and
spent the war years on ships in the South Pacific. His brother was infected
with malaria near the end of the war, and suffered considerably from it.
I have many vivid memories of the war years, and how glad we all were to see
it finally end. Those were days I hope never to see repeated.
Janet Paxton