This may sound crazy to most of you, and maybe I am for thinking about it. If Icould go back in time I would have wanted to be in WW-2 and here are my reasons for that. WW-2 was the only war in our history when every single American was invested in the war. 16 million men and women were in uniform (close to half of the population). Everyone at home had someone in the family or next door that was serving his/her country in its time of need. People at home had to endure rationing. They worked in defense plants, worked on scrap metal drives, grew victory gardens, recycled grease and fats to make glycerin which was used to make bombs blow up.
Had I been in the navy on aircraft carriers I would have been working on flight decks with the finest propellor planes ever made. The excitement of getting up before dawn to launch planes to scout out and find any Japanese planes that may be in the area would have been exciting to me. Being in life or death battles at any moment would have been fine with me. Bear in mind I would have been 17 and thinking that no matter what happened I would make it through the war. WW-2 was the only war when Americans fully appreciated its veterans when they returned home, unlike wars since then.
Thinking about my time in the navy, the excitement of being on an air crew flying all over, chasing bad weather, bouncing up and down at times when we had to be strapped into our seats so we wouldn’t hit the ceiling or get tossed into an aisleway was pure adrenalin. Doing that or conducting radar watches over the fleet seemed like an important thing to do. Later working on flight decks when we were launching or recovering attack planes were the best of times for me. During stand downs with nothing going on, the time dragged on endlessly. We weren’t launching planes, we were just sailing in the gulf and sanding salt corrosion off airplanes or other unpleasant things. That said, my exciting times then pale in comparison to being in WW-2.
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