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Read other letters about this article
Saved in my grandfather's attic.
It's a fascinating look at the end of a strikingly different war. The magazine is filled from beginning to end with positive public sentiment about the troops, about "our boys" coming home, and about the job they did. Everything from the vacuum cleaner ads to the chilling article about atomic bomb tests in New Mexico. The cover showed a boyish looking Jimmy Stewart coming home.
That war didn't have nearly the public questioning that this one has. The public, to an almost universal extent, seemed to believe in the usefulness of what they were doing. It didn't make the war any less brutal (see Saving Private Ryan), but the homecoming and its aftermath must have been far, far different.
This article helps to explain why perhaps the soldiers of that generation didn't have as many problems with PTSD. They believed in their mission, the whole country believed in their mission, the whole country rationed everything and planted gardens and helped in any way they could. They had a hero's welcome home, memorials built to the fallen, and a trip to college on the GI bill to look forward to.
What a difference. I wish I could believe in this war the way my parents believed in WWII, if only to ease the way home for the soldiers. But I don't, and neither does anyone else.
