“Why the hell are you doing this”

A photo of my Dad standing…somewhere in Europe.

Seriously. this is a question I have heard from more than one veteran. Why am I doing this? Why interview these guys to get their “Stories?” The ones they didn’t tell their children about. The ones that we should have asked them but didn’t. “My father was born in May of 1919, that means he lived through the depression, Prohibition and then WWII. All before he turned 30 years old. But, the Ole Man never had a story to tell. When he died, he took those stories with him,” I’d try to explain.

“As I’m the youngest of four boys, we had lots of friends and relatives, just like you do,” I’d continue. That meant there were still plenty of us around. The baby boomer generation of “non-fighting veterans”, as I called us. We were raised and grew up a certain way as a direct result of our parents war efforts. We know it’s true, you should know that too.

So, what was their life like fighting a brutal world war? What did they do everyday? How did they eat and sleep? Were they drafted or did they enlist? Where were they when they heard Pearl Harbor was bombed? Did they know it was coming? What was the mood like in this country? The questions we should all have asked are endless. So I spent over 2 years interviewing dozens of WWII veterans so we can get some of these answers. It couldn’t have been glorious and it sure wasn’t a 30 second black and white clip like we see on the History Channel.

I wanted to know. I want you to know. They saved the world and still can’t understand why I wanted to hear about it! Now you can too.”My Father’s War: Memories from Our Honored WWII Soldiers” isn’t about my father at all, but all our fathers and grandfathers and uncles. God Bless them and God Bless America.

Charley Valera