In the days following the December


7, 1941 attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, lines of young American men formed in front of enlist- ment centers asking for the chance to avenge the carnage visited upon their fellow countrymen. These young men would go on to form the vanguard of what would later become known as America’s Greatest Generation.


What was it about these young men,


and the sixteen million that followed them into war, that was so special they would earn the right to be known as the Greatest Generation?


When we picture the American


fighting man, we think in exaggerated terms and imagine someone like John Wayne or Captain America. In truth, this was a generation ill equipped and ill pre- pared for the challenges they would face. They grew up during The Great Depression when many were faced with food shortages, and many young men and women were forced to drop out of school in order to help feed the family. In short, they were undersized and under- educated, hardly the stuff of legends.


The average young man in his late


teens or early twenties, who waited in line to enlist during those cold De- cember days, didn’t come close to measuring up to our movie star standards; he weighed in at barely 140 pounds and stood only


5’-8” tall, yet he would spend the


next four years engaged in a struggle that ultimately would result in the deaths of perhaps sixty million people around the world. Their war would take them to every corner of the world from the frozen Arctic to the jungles of the South Pacific. They would be asked to shoulder a load that could only be carried by making the greatest of sacrifices which all too often included their own lives.


Yet, the soldier’s story was only the


first part of what was to come to this world stage; the men who fought and were victorious and those who fought and died were only a part of the Greatest Generation.


America had been asked to become


the “Arsenal of Democracy”, but when America’s men marched off to war, how was this to be accomplished? The an- swer was, of course, American women stepped forward, and “Rosie the Riveter” was born. The sisters, wives, and sweethearts of those soon to be warriors would join with their men for the battles ahead. Their weapons would not be ri- fles or machine guns, but welding ma- chines and rivet guns. These women would not only help provide the tools of war to the American fighting man, but would help provide two thirds of the ma- terial used by all allied armies over the next four years.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16