When I was a little girl, in the early 60's, my father never mentioned WWII.  I don't think he even told me that he was a radio operator on in a C-47 Paratrooper squadron.  I grew up in Texas in a little bubble of a nice middle class home with a mother and brother.  The war was never mentioned.  My Dad was a minister in a Baptist church.  Everything we did revolved around the church and my life was very sheltered.  I think he wanted those memories to be pushed in the back of his mind never to be recalled. He wanted to get on with his life.  I think he thought that little girls should not be told about such things.
    Moving forward to  the last 15 years or so, Dad began to tell our family about his experiences.  He started corresponding with all of his WWII buddies and wanting to reunite to talk about their experiences before it was too late.  Only then, did I begin to hear about his own.  I learned that he had participated in  D-Day where he flew over Normandy to drop paratroopers and supplies and I learned he also participated in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.  I found out he had kept a very detailed diary of his experiences but even to this day, I still have never seen it.  Then my dad became really involved in trying to accurately record his and his buddies experiences.  The guys in his squadron began meeting yearly as if time were running out.  Dad collected all of their stories and began writing squadron newsletters. One thing led to another and he ended up self-publishing a book he wrote entitled , "On wings of Troop Carriers". 
    I was then given the book and read it with great interest.  I do have to admit  that after reading it several times, I still did not have a sense of the historical importance of  what it was all about.  My school teachers in Texas did not go into great detail about WWII and I know now that I knew very little of what it was all about.
    Here I am now 51 years old .  I just saw the Ken Burn's film on WWII and seeing the actual footage of the war made a huge impression on me!  I think finally I understand how much our men had to sacrifice for our country's freedom!  It is incredible to think about the effort it took on the part of almost everyone just to sustain our army and how brave they were to go into battle knowing that there was a good chance they'd never come home.  I am really angry and I just don't understand why I was never really taught about the gravity of our world's situation at that point in history.  Was this something that was just too graphic for children to know about?  I think I might have had a better sense of the sacrifices that were made for our freedom if I had been told and shown real footage of the war when I was a young person.  I think I might have also had a truer sense of patriotism through the years if I had known the horror and devastation of so many  of our men and women in the military.
    I wonder if the young people of today even know about it or care.  How many of them sat down to watch the Ken Burns film?  I have to say, it hit me hard.  We think things are bad in Iraq now, but this war is not one millionth of the amount of devastation that was brought about in WWII.   We must continue to tell our children the real story of what happened to the world in 1942-1945.