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Post by roly on Apr 19, 2024 6:40:20 GMT -5
can not credit either or both great wars as being the reason we exist?
Me for sure and I expect that's the case with most of us.
Hell of a way to get one's foot in the door.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Apr 19, 2024 6:56:29 GMT -5
Not sure I fully understand. Do you mean us individually, or as a species? As for me, my existence hung by a thin thread based on my parents plight in Europe during WWII. My mother's father was an operative in the Polish Underground and as a result his family was sent off to a camp in Siberia. There his wife and 2 daughters perished from famine and disease, leaving only my mother and 1 sister. They were eventually shipped off to relocation camps and orphanages in Uzbekistan, Persia and Lebanon. Both suffered greatly from malaria and malnutrition. An uncle eventually located them through the Red Cross and took them in. If they had succumbed to the same fate as the rest of their family who knows what genetic version of me would exist, and where.
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Post by Leftee on Apr 19, 2024 7:01:31 GMT -5
Very interesting topic! I've thought about this from time to time.
Both sets of my grandparents missed both wars as direct participants. They were too young for the first and too old for the second. My father would have gone to Korea, but he was RIF'd (Reduction in Forces) out of ROTC right before graduation for a bum shoulder. He was too old for Viet Nam, but two of his brothers were in that age-group. They attended college so they were exempted.
I was the first person on either side of the family (direct line) to even serve in the military in three generations. I think one of my dad's uncles served in the Pacific during WWII.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Apr 19, 2024 7:20:27 GMT -5
I also don't fully know where the chain of my existence could have been broken further up the family tree. I know my paternal grandfather was in the Austrian army. There were so many conflicts in Europe that preceded and were sandwiched in between both great wars. The more I research the more confused I am about Europe. Both my parents were Polish by birth. My mother was born in "Wilno", now Vilnius the Capitol of Lithuania. My dad was born in "Lwow", now "Lviv" Ukraine. I've always assumed Wilno rightfully belonged to Poland and was appropriated be the USSR. But reading about the history of just that one region, the shifting borders, well it makes my head hurt.
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Post by Mike the marksman on Apr 19, 2024 7:41:08 GMT -5
The only member of my family that participated in either world war was my great uncle Jim, who turned 18 and was drafted in late 1944, and arrived in Europe towards the tail end of WWII. All my grandparents were born in the 30s and were too young, and none of my great grandparents served in the Great War.
It's strange that all my great grandparents were born at the turn of the last century, but waited until the great depression was in full swing to start having most of their kids, lol.
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Post by Leftee on Apr 19, 2024 7:53:14 GMT -5
It’s not like they had money to go to dinner or the movies. The greatest entertainment is free. Well… at the time of the partaking.😂
My parents were Great Depression babies.
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Post by Taildragger on Apr 19, 2024 15:13:58 GMT -5
My dad served in the USN during WWII, commanding a small landing ship (LCI-L) that participated in 5 amphibious landings, including Anzio (January 22, 1944) and Normandy (June 6. 1944). By December of 1944, he had been slated to assume command of a larger landing ship (LST) in the PTO, where just about every land battle against the Japanese started with a very bloody, amphibious landing. But somebody up the chain of command then decided that his combat experience made him valuable as a potential stateside training officer, so he was ordered to return home from England and perform those duties for (as it turned out) the remainder of the war. In November of 1945 he was released from active duty and in February of 1946, my older brother was born. I followed in January of 1949.
My parents had married in 1932, but probably put off having kids because of the uncertain financial situations they were experiencing due to the Great Depression. I think that a lot of those WWII vets, having witnessed so much carnage, were anxious to get back to doing something more “life-affirming” in civilian life, such as having kids. So, to answer Roly’s question (if I'm understanding it correctly) I think that WWII helped to motivate my parents to have me and my brother.
I saw something similar happen to a friend who came back from Vietnam as a twice-wounded Vet who'd seen a good deal of combat: his wife had a child about 9 months thereafter and caring for that baby seemed to do wonders to heal (or at least mitigate) the emotional trauma he'd suffered.
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Post by LTB on Apr 19, 2024 16:12:51 GMT -5
My grandfather on mom's side served in WW1. My dad in WW2. They fought hard to preserve our freedoms. Things could have been very different. Unfortunately things are very different now than when growing up. Seems people forget!
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Post by roly on Apr 20, 2024 8:01:54 GMT -5
I didn't do a good job describing the topic.
Had there been no second war, my parents would not have met and I would not exist.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Apr 20, 2024 8:20:44 GMT -5
I didn't do a good job describing the topic. Had there been no second war, my parents would not have met and I would not exist. Nor mine, likely. The war displaced them and drove them to places they'd have never had gone. In parents case, my mom eventually wound up in England. My dad had already emigrated to the US and was enlisted in the army. When on leave in England he hooked up with a childhood friend who said "I should introduce you to my sister-in-law". |
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Post by Leftee on Apr 20, 2024 8:32:44 GMT -5
I don’t know of any such threads in my lineage. It appears to be quite the opposite. That said, I don’t know the smaller details. Those are lost in time.
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Post by LTB on Apr 20, 2024 9:07:50 GMT -5
I am fairly positive a lot of us might not be here if it wasn’t for WWII, guys.
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professor
Wholenote
"Now I want you to go in that bag and find my wallet." / KMMFA
Posts: 621
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Post by professor on Apr 20, 2024 11:43:26 GMT -5
My mother had a boy friend while she was in college who was killed in North Africa as part of a tank crew. She met my father later. He was in the Marines and would have been in the invasion of Japan except for the atomic bombings. He was also in Korea when I was born but did return, so....
My wife's father was an Army Air Corp flight instructor, survived several crash landings, but never saw active duty, which forever bothered him.
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Post by Rick Knight on Apr 21, 2024 7:19:28 GMT -5
I didn't do a good job describing the topic. Had there been no second war, my parents would not have met and I would not exist. WW2 didn't contribute to my existence, but may have delayed my arrival. My parents dated in high school. Upon graduation in 1944, he enlisted in the Navy. They married after he was discharged in 1946. |
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Post by oldnjplayer on Apr 21, 2024 9:55:23 GMT -5
My father served in US Army in Pacific front. Met my mother on RnR in Australia. Years after end of war he was able to get her into US. (there were strict prohibitions against Chinese coming into US at that time). End result me and my sister.
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Post by Opie on Apr 21, 2024 10:12:20 GMT -5
I didn't do a good job describing the topic. Had there been no second war, my parents would not have met and I would not exist. My dad was ww2 navy guy, USS New Orleans. He wasn't off the boat long before he ran into my mom. That night he called his mother and said he met the girl he was going to marry. Next day in Las Vegas they tied the knot. In other words, a typical post war marriage, four years of pent up hormones and near death experiences along side of the wimmin folk after four years of a shortage of men. Nature abhors a vacuum. |
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Post by rdr on Apr 21, 2024 10:43:39 GMT -5
My Dad was working in a steel mill and attending BYU when he signed up with the War Dept. Went to Egypt and India on an Army Air Corps general's staff. Ultimately joined the Air Force, and met my Mom, who was working at SAC. Then they had me. So I suppose war enabled that union.
Dad made it to be civilian director of Air Force dept of programming and planning (AF budget and logistics) in the Pentagon.
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Post by Taildragger on Apr 21, 2024 10:58:13 GMT -5
Two things to add to my post above:
1)-The Great Depression caused my folks to put off having kids (for obvious financial reasons). Some economists argue that, although the USA was already slowly dragging itself out of The Depression by employing the unemployed (25% unemployment rate among the working-age population at the height of The Depression) with government-funded, public service projects, it was the huge influx of government spending on war industries that "finished the job". If that is so, you can say that, at least indirectly, the war helped create the financial security that made my parents confident that they could afford to raise kids.
2)-It was the vicissitudes of WWII that allowed my dad to survive to procreate. Lucky for him, lucky for me (and my brother).
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Post by WireDog on Apr 23, 2024 8:47:53 GMT -5
Being in the service automatically makes one a chick magnet! Even more so if you go to war and survive. The libido runs rampant; bedazzled ladies are intrigued; procreation is accomplished; then the process of becoming a grizzled, possibly amusing old character with a limp kicks in. Don't ask me how I know this.
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