April 2005 … April 1945

What would my grandmother make of America today? It’s a question I’ve asked myself at various times in the three decades since her death … when I see people covered with tattoos and metal in their faces, once when I encountered a guy with a large swastika on his T-shirt, and recently it’s come up again in light of current events. I wonder how she would react to America’s response to the war against Islamic fascists, the invasion of Iraq, and the daily diet of news we read and see on our screens.My grandmother was one of the most centered individuals I have ever encountered, with a strong, very Midwestern sense of right and wrong. So I have to believe she would have been delighted with the ouster and capture of one of the most venal dictators on earth – Saddam Hussein. She didn’t much care for tyrants and liked anti-Semites even less. I think she would have been pleased with the democratic election in the face of maniacal terrorists who tried to bully people from voting – something she was not unfamiliar with in her day. But as for the constant hand-wringing over “false information” leading up to the invasion, the debate over postwar planning, and the disproportionate amount of news over the misconduct of 10 soldiers at Abu Ghraib, she might have been bewildered. Mind you, she loved free speech and never stifled her views – she definitely had a mind of her own. But she also came from the school where you showed loyalty first and sorted out the rest of the problems after external threats were taken care of. “First things first,” she liked to say.Two years after the fall of Baghdad, and three-and-a–half years after the worst attack on American soil ever, I’ve been thinking about a specific period in her tumultuous life. Although much has been written about the “greatest generation,” I think not enough has been said about its parents – the mothers and fathers who sent their sons and daughters off to war. We see them now only in black-and-white photographs … wearing plain clothes and looking older than their years. No wonder. They were all probably aged by the experience.My grandparents lived in a split-level home on the West Side of Milwaukee throughout World War II. My grandmother’s sister lived downstairs with her family. They had two sons – both in the Pacific. Upstairs, my grandparents had two sons as well, my dad and my uncle, both of whom were fighting in Europe. Although I have marveled at the courage of those four cousins, I have often thought about the constant fear that must have been pervasive in that home. I wonder how they got up in the morning, did their work, and were able to sleep at night. And I wonder where they found the steel that bolstered their spines, an alloy that was replicated in millions of homes throughout this country during those years. The same alloy that fathers and mothers have discovered in homes from Hawaii to Maine 60 years later.We don’t hear much about those people today. On the news barometer, they probably don’t rank up there with armor plating or Halliburton. But when criticism of the effort in Iraq began at the very start with terms like quagmire, Vietnam, and even Stalingrad, I think it may be helpful to remember what this country faced during another April 60 years ago when that war seemed almost won.In that April 1945, Germany had almost collapsed, but there were still daily casualty reports. It was far from clear that fanatic Nazis who fought on bitterly, would accept surrender. Many of the battle hardened troops in the European Theater were already being rotated back to the states for a 30-day leave and then reassembled on the West Coast in preparation for the invasion of Japan. (My uncle, who had been wounded in Holland in October 1944, was one of them – he managed to survive the war in Europe, was home on leave and ordered to California, where his division was training for the battle to come.)In the Pacific that month, the invasion of Okinawa began on April 1 and would not end until June 22. It would be the bloodiest battle of all against Japan. Altogether, 34 U.S. ships and craft were sunk and 763 American planes destroyed. Over 12,000 Americans lost their lives on Okinawa – 8,000 Marines and soldiers killed as well as 5,000 Navy dead (many of those killed by the suicide bombers of their day – waves of kamikazes). Thirty-six thousand Americans were wounded. There was still hard fighting in the Philippines as well. Remember, this was April 1945, when the war was supposed to be winding down. Add to this the sudden dislocation here at home when Franklin Roosevelt, the only president many of these soldiers ever knew, died on April 12, replaced by the virtually unknown and far less charismatic Harry Truman. Later that spring, Japanese Premier Suzuki announced that Japan would never surrender and would fight until the very end as preparations for “Operation Olympic,” the invasion of the mainland, proceeded at a fast pace – the proposed date set for November 1. In hindsight, we know, of course, that the atom bomb ended it all … but in April 1945, the public wasn’t aware that the bomb existed. Even the scientists at Los Alamos were not sure it would work – the first test wouldn’t take place until July 16 at the Trinity site in White Sands.It must have been awful for parents across the country that month – even the dead were buried overseas. For those mothers and fathers, there was no funeral they could attend. A letter from the War Department, a Purple Heart, and a gold star to put up in the window was all they had.So I think about that older generation today, all of them gone now. I compare our problems this April with the ones they faced back then. I compare their determination with our own. And I marvel not just at their courage, but at their optimism. I wish I could ask my grandmother what it was that kept her going and gave her the strength to laugh and sing. Somehow, they understood that what they were doing was difficult but necessary. And in spite of it all, they still had a rock-solid belief that “all of these troubles” – that’s how my grandparents referred to the war in letters to their soldier-sons – would end someday after they “got the job done,” another quote used repeatedly to push their sons on in those now brittle pages.Mr. Kozak is the author of “The Rabbi of 84th Street” (HarperCollins).

April 2005 … April 1945

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