The effects of the Great Depression, pressed between two World Wars, made me, D. J., as well as my family, reflect upon feelings toward men's conflicts and leadership of world nations. I detested wars and all things causing them. On a garden plot one hot summer morning in 1948, while weeding around tender sprouts, my father told me, his eleven-year-old son, about his friend, a victim of war who had joined the US Army in 1917. He wanted to fight the kaiser and help bring peace to the world. This friend died struggling for his life, slowly losing his ability to breathe due to the effects of gas poisoning in the trenches of France. I remembered that story.
On December 7, 1942, the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, destroying aircraft, ships, and many navy men. I was six years old and failed to understand the impact of this deed, but I saw the effects it left on my parents and siblings and wanted to know why. My two older brothers explained that the United States was at war, that the Japanese had declared war on us. This gave me great alarm and left me in fear. When planes flew overhead, I crawled under my bed and covered my head. I believed the Japanese had returned to kill all of us. War affects people, especially young children that way.
As the war progressed, my family established a ritual at the morning breakfast table. We checked the weekly list of soldiers and sailors in the newspaper that had been killed or missing in action. We cringed and cried when a familiar name was listed with the initials of KIA or MIA. We found a name we all knew, a cousin, my aunt's only son.
The Second World War came with angry images and impressions that followed me through my life and still flash forth at random times. Movietone News screened a clip near the end of the war in 1945 that I can't forget. It was of a toddler covered in dirt and ashes, sitting in the middle of a road scattered with debris, a child, all alone, with his fist in his mouth, crying for his mother who lay dead beside him. This scene is forever imprinted in my mind.
Memories of Home and Distant Wars contains recollections of stories from my memory based on true events from the late 1930s into the 1960s, collected from an era of hardships and sacrifice. These memories were shared with family and friends who encouraged me to have them published.