Q. for seniors: what was it like when WWII was 25, 30 years behind you?

Question

Did you reminisce? Did you feel old and out of sync with culture? What were you feeling when the war years were 25, 30 years behind you?

Answer 1

I was born right after the war.

20-30 years later were the free spirit & free love, communes, drug using years. Most of us came out of those years intact. Some of my friends had "Herpes" as a life long reminder of those years.

I am feeling out of sync with the "digital age". I feel fortunate to be able to use a computer. I am lost in the electronic aisles of the department stores. Yesterday I saw a digital picture frame for the first time. My Granddaughter would love it. I think I will get her one for Christmas.

Answer 2

Digital Age,

I was born April 1943, about mid-WWII era, times were tough but we survived. Farmers came to the house to sell their vegetables and the milk company delivered milk with cream on the top in glass bottles.

1943 + 25 = 1968. I was a 25 y/o scared soldier getting ready to deploy to Vietnam.

1973 I was working for the Army Recruiting in Miami Florida,

Between 1973 and now I have retired from the military and had a fairly good life.

Yes I have times when I feel old but I have traveled the world and seen pladces some people don't know exist.

I try to stay "in sync" with what is happening with the world as I am a media junky nerd.

I've worked on computers for 25 years and still don't understand them.

Answer 3

Most of us seniors...baby boomers...were born after the soldiers came home from World War II. Everyone reminisces. Even a high school student. Out of sync? I am on a computer, so I feel I am staying in touch with culture.

Answer 4

I remember Pearl Harbor, I was a 4 year old in a small Kansas town. My mother always had the radio turned on. I don't remember much about that day but the confusion and a sort of tenseness. Daddy enlisted, he was in his late 20's. He came home safe around '46. I remember with vagueness all the events and landmark days.

The war affected my dreams for years after. I believed we were safe and there would be no more war, then came along Korea! My brother was in West Point at the time and I was so afraid of losing him. Thanks be to God, he is an old man in Montana now who still does jobs for the military.
Now, I feel so sad for my Grandchildren, it certainly is not the same world now. Money and Power at whatever level rule the world, very sad!!

Answer 5

My mom was born as the war started. She lived in Germany during those times and even now she does not reminisce at all. She has told us a few stories about being shot at and kicked out of their home, but not much more than that. She does not want to remember those days of her childhood.

Answer 6

I'm an Australian born in 1938 just prior to WW11. My father served in the Air Force,... was based in Darwin and fought over New Guinea and the Pacific regions.
I only discovered I had a father when he was injured with shrapnel during a Darwin air raid in 1942 and was hospitalised. He returned to the fray until 1945 and I discovered him again. During the War he had been a stranger to me.
Thirty years later, I found that our relationship was not much better. Because he had fathered another brother and sister to me after the War, he naturally spent more time with them and their relationship was much closer than mine.
I grew up trying to form a deeper relationship with him, but it didn't happen until near his death in 1982.
I came to understand that it's important for both parents to have a 'bonding' with your children right from the time of their birth, otherwise there is a sense of 'missing out' in the Love Dept.
Fortunately, my relationship with my mother was very close until her death in 1964 of cancer,... aged 54 and far too young to die.
Yes I do reminisce occasionally in what might have been, if there was no War at all.

Answer 7

So, here are the High Year Tenure numbers for the CG. E9.......30 Years Active Military Service E8.......28 Years Active Military Service E7.......26 Years Active Military Service E6.......22 Years Active Military Service E5.......20 Years Active Military Service An E-8... they are the top 2% of the enlisted force. En E-9... the top 1%! In other words.... it's VERY hard to make it to 30 years. It takes perseverance, fortitude, leadership skills, the right attitude, etc. to make it that far.

Answer 8

For the babyboomers, we were just starting to be born. That would have made us 25, 25 years after and 30 years old when it was 30 years afer WWII.

Answer 9

There are not all that many people around now who can remember WW2, especially online. I was born right after the war and I am sixty one years old.

Answer 10

i agree with poster one and two -- if you want a answer to this question you will have to hit the bricks and talk to folks one on one -- one place you could get alot of views is by going to an old soldiers home like the one they have in washington dc!!! now i can remember my bothers being in the war -- but i can not relate what they would felt like in 1963!!! at that time two of them had just came back from vietnam!!!!