<story><title>The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1989/08/the-real-war-1939-1945/306374/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ARandomerDude</author><text>I didn&amp;#x27;t fight in WW2 obviously, but I did fight in a war.  For me, the reticence to describe every detail to people who weren&amp;#x27;t there boils down to this: I don&amp;#x27;t want my wife, my children, or my neighbors to be burdened with thinking of something so horrible.  I want them to be happy and safe, that&amp;#x27;s why I went.  No need to bring it to their doorstep if I don&amp;#x27;t have to.&lt;p&gt;I suspect many during and after WW2 felt this way.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iancmceachern</author><text>I haven&amp;#x27;t, my grandfather did.  He was at Pearl Harbor, many battles in the Pacific (he was a submariner), in the end he was part of the occupation of Japan and earned many medals including the purple heart for almost dying in a sub accident.&lt;p&gt;Only as an adult have I come to realize the gift he gave me.&lt;p&gt;When I was a child, I spent a ton of time with him, he had a big hand in raising me.  The picture he painted for the young me formed the foundation of my world view.  He chose to share with us the Japanese cooking he learned while living there, he taught us how to use chop  sticks, one of my most prized possessions is a silk he brought back and gave me in his will.  He never once spoke negatively about any group of people, especially those who were &amp;quot;enemies&amp;quot;, he stood up for anyone who was being treated negatively and wouldn&amp;#x27;t stand for it.  He harbored no ill will, and therefore didn&amp;#x27;t put it in me.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s only as an adult through research into his service that i have realized the full gravity of what he did during this service and the fact that he was a truly happy, blissful, and forgiving man after all that.&lt;p&gt;I can say to you, having been one of the recipients of the kindness and forgiveness you are showing in your own life now, and sharing in this comment - thank you.  This is how the world moves on.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1989/08/the-real-war-1939-1945/306374/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ARandomerDude</author><text>I didn&amp;#x27;t fight in WW2 obviously, but I did fight in a war.  For me, the reticence to describe every detail to people who weren&amp;#x27;t there boils down to this: I don&amp;#x27;t want my wife, my children, or my neighbors to be burdened with thinking of something so horrible.  I want them to be happy and safe, that&amp;#x27;s why I went.  No need to bring it to their doorstep if I don&amp;#x27;t have to.&lt;p&gt;I suspect many during and after WW2 felt this way.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gumby</author><text>&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t want my wife, my children, or my neighbors to be burdened with thinking of something so horrible.&lt;p&gt;Interesting.  Until &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; recently, as far as I could know, my mother&amp;#x27;s life began at 16.  She refused to talk about anything from her childhood.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if, like you, she didn&amp;#x27;t want to traumatize us or simply didn&amp;#x27;t want to think about it at all.  But now, in her late 80s, she&amp;#x27;ll sometimes absent-mindedly relate some story from her childhood.  They are all kid stories, but the perspective in them can be hair raising.  (She was a child in an occupied country during WWII in the pacific; then immediately as the war ended the country became a different war zone, so she only knew living in that kind of environment until she left the country to go to university).&lt;p&gt;Recently I&amp;#x27;ve been thinking of this because of the Ukraine war.  I have seen at close range the impact of a generation of kids (like my mother in law, and others in her village) who grew up in postwar Germany with essentially no adult men around.  That whole generation is pretty screwed up, and their kids (my generation) also reflect that impact.  While my personal opinion is that Germany is not doing anywhere near enough to help Ukraine, I think they should be preparing a for a huge postwar assistance, not just money for rebuilding, but psychological &amp;#x2F; therapy based on their experience to try to reduce the effects of wartime trauma on Ukraine.</text></comment>