Posted by Thanks-For-Being-There, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 9, 2012 at 11:04 am

Enough can not be said to honor this generation. We will likely never see another one like it.

> "In those days all we wanted to do was to get home. We fought

> a war where we knew if we didn't win, we'd be dead or slaves,"

> he said

This is so very true. What is so difficult to understand is how people seem to think that the Japanese citizens, as well as those Americans of Japanese descent) who were interred were mistreated by the American government. If the US and the Allies had lost the war, the Japanese and Germans would not have treated the defeated US the way we treated them. The US did what it had to do--from the Interment camps to the Atomic Bomb. We did not want that war to happen, but were powerless to do anything about it until finally drawn into the fray.

Sadly, most people have never met a WWII veteran, and soon--there won't be any of them left to tell their stories. It's a shame that all of these men/women who lived through this era are not interviewed and their stories archived for the future.

Posted by Jake, a resident of another community, on Nov 9, 2012 at 12:06 pm

Thank you both for your service to your Country and the World. Can't even imagine where we might be today without WWII veterans.

Posted by Jeff, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 9, 2012 at 6:42 pm

Sad that President Obama is destroying all that our veterans fought for.

Posted by Janet, a resident of the Palo Alto Hills neighborhood, on Nov 9, 2012 at 6:43 pm

[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]

Posted by Nora Charles, a resident of Stanford, on Nov 9, 2012 at 6:46 pm

Very, very moving. Great job, Sue Dremann. Thank you to veterans of all America's wars, and especially my dad, a WWII vet. They WERE the greatest generation.

Posted by Debbie Ford-Scriba, a resident of another community, on Nov 9, 2012 at 7:41 pm

Thanks for a great article. Makes me nostalgic for my late dad, a WWII vet. He was drafted when he was 18 & spent four years in the thick of it in Europe. Many of his friends were killed, and he wouldn't marry my mother before he left because he didn't think he'd make it back. I honestly think his experience made him the optimistic, trouble roll-off-your back kind of person he was. He didn't talk about the war at all until almost the end of his life, at the time of the 50th anniversary. He had a similar story about going AWOL w/the ladies when they liberated Paris that he only told my brother. Oooo la la!

Posted by Wayne Martin, a resident of the Fairmeadow neighborhood, on Nov 10, 2012 at 8:19 am

The US Library of Congress started the Veterans History Project about ten years ago:

Web Link

Veterans History Project:

Web Link

Veterans can submit their stories so that what they say, and learned, will not be forgotten.