I was born in 1958. Mom and Dad were still re-living Pearl Harbor every year. Mom and Dad were living about 5 miles apart in those days. At one point, they even attended the same school, but they didn't meet until 1956. Dad was living on the family farm. Mom lived in town.
If I remember correctly, Mom's family had come home from church. They were going to eat Sunday Dinner out, but when the news hit, they stayed home and stayed glued to the radio. Her father was running a plant that had been deemed necessary for the war. He'd get a deferment. However, all the cousins and such were going to volunteer or get drafted.
Dad was out on the farm sawing wood with the tenant farm manager. Things were tense for the German-Americans. Grandpa had moved the family out to the farm in 1939, but managed to pick a locale that was a hotbed for Bund activity. My dad had been born here, but his oldest brother had been born in Germany. Germans were being thrown into the camps. Grandpa was a fairly fiercely outspoken anti-Fascist, but mostly that just caused tensions with the pro-Nazi neighbors. There had been fights in school, fights at the saloon. Everyone was dealing crap to the Krauts.
Dad was 15. He knew if this crap lasted long enough, he was going to be going in. His two other brothers were draftable. Being of German heritage, they might have been excluded. However, a war in the Pacific meant everybody was going in for sure. Since he was 10, he'd had his own Zenith floor model radio. He'd stayed up nights listening to the broadcasts out of London and Berlin. He was scared to death of what was coming.
Mom is still hateful of Japanese. Dad was far more circumspect. Neither forgave the Japs for the treachery of the sneak attack. However, my Dad didn't go on to hate Japanese. He was on a boat headed for the Invasion of Japan when the bombs were dropped. He was just happy to go home at the end of it. Mom had cousins that fought in The Bulge and at Anzio. They all came back weird, but still in one piece.
