Victory Celebrations and Frightening Lessons About War

I had no early awareness of the threat to our freedom and the deadly implications of the real war. When the war broke out in Europe in 1938, I was only two. Later on, I remember playing with little metal war toys like tanks and planes and guns, and calling playmates “Dirty Japs” while pulling the corners of our eyelids up and making buck teeth, and doing “Heil Hitlers!” with the end of a black comb held under our noses for a short mustache. Late in the war, I remember reading Iris’ (she was about fourteen or fifteen, then) mushy Victory Letters from her older boyfriends in the service and getting caught and tattled on for it. The letters had Disney cartoon characters (like Mickey Mouse riding on a bomb) and some “win the war” slogan and many of the letters’ words had been censored with black lines for troop security. I can still clearly here Gabriel Heater saying, “Oh, there’s bad news tonight,” as he grimly detailed the latest battles and reported statistics counting the dead, wounded, or missing in action on his evening radio program. Grampa had a son (Uncle Lloyd) in action and followed the war closely and often made comment about it to Dad, but Mom, who called Grampa “Dad,” pleaded with him not to scare us kids. When Gabriel Heater said, “Oh, there’s good news tonight,” we were all happy—especially Mom. I did know Uncle Lloyd (who I liked because he used to bring me Superman toys when I was little) was in New Guinea in the Signal Corps in the war. He gave me a Japanese flag that had blood on it and some old Japanese money as well as some U.S. Occupation Scrip money when he came home wounded. One of Iris’ very short boyfriends gave me a pair of his white, bell- bottomed sailor’s pants with lots of buttons and a drawstring, which I cherished and practically lived in. I was aware of the scarcity of sugar and coffee but never made the connection to Hawaii and the war in the Pacific. We were lucky to have ten Food Ration and three Gasoline Ration books in the family. Dad said we never bought that much of the stuff made scarce by the war except gas, anyway. I don’t remember suffering from rationing, though I know Daddy “rolled his own” during the war and silk stockings were very scarce. I can distinctly still see Iris drawing a fake silk stocking seam-line down the back of Mother’s just-shaved legs with an eyebrow pencil as Mom stood teetering on a chair. Then Mom applied leg makeup to Iris’ legs and drew the same lines on her. Victory gardens were new to many but not to our family. We’d had what I thought was a huge vegetable garden ever since we’d moved in. Dad and Grampa were excellent gardeners, but John Reichenberg was considered the best and most often consulted about growing requirements and how to deal with pests. (His solutions usually involved DDT.) John had a large collection of seed catalogs, which everyone borrowed to order their seeds and which we loved to look at to see all the strange things you could grow that you never heard of. Tomato-seed saving and sharing took place in the early days, but later on, we bought new baby plants every year. I can clearly see myself bending over to water them with tin cans full of water scooped from a rusty bucket carried over from the well. We displayed a Victory Garden placard with its large letter “V” as proudly as anyone else did, anyway. Mom also displayed a gold-fringed banner with one blue star on a white square surrounded by red, which denoted to all that her brother was in the war. The scrap drives would have helped get rid of some—if not all—of Dad’s junk, but he said he might need every single piece of it for something and wouldn’t give it up. (I must be a packrat for the same reason. Today, I pride myself on having a complete household, fully stocked and prepared for absolutely any eventuality.) Why we Boy Scouts had Paper Drives, I cannot say. On V-E (Victory over Europe) Day in the late summer of 1945, when I was nine, I distinctly remember standing on the front porch in a misty drizzling rain knowing that this was a big day and feeling a strong sense of pride in America. I tried hard to feel the profundity of the moment but I hadn’t really understood what had been at stake. However, somehow I borrowed the excitement of Mom, Dad, Grampa, and Iris. Mom wanted to go downtown in the car to join into the spontaneous celebration parade that had formed, but Dad wanted to stay home and “get drunk” (though he rarely drank.) I think he was always a little embarrassed that he did not have to go to war because he’d been exempted to take care of his large family by the local Draft Board, while others he knew personally had to go. (He missed both wars: Too young for W.W.I, and too many dependents to take care of for W.W.II.) During the war years, Dad helped the war effort at home by making machine gun parts and tank tracks at John Deere Plow Works, which was converted from farm equipment for the war effort. The lesson I carried away from this was the importance of looking out for Number One. Dad always told us it was important to look out for ourselves first so we could take care of our family, but the country had to come next after that. After V-J DAY, Dad spoke quietly of Japanese atrocities with Mom in one of their quiet early morning breakfast conversations. He didn’t know I was awake in the next room with only a thin cloth curtain between us. As I lay in bed listening, and being only ten, I was mortified at the stories he was relating and decided I would never go to any war. Once, the Royal American Shows, a traveling carnival that came to Moline annually, had an exhibit of Japanese atrocities that Daddy took me inside a tent to see. Really gross black and white photos of dead American soldiers and a few wax recreations of mutilated Japanese bodies petrified me. It was so real. There was even a wax replica of Tojo, the emperor of Japan, who was made hideous with overlarge buck teeth and round black wire- rim glasses. I was petrified. However, to really screw with my head, at that same carnival I swear I saw the pubes of some exotic dancer up on a stage when her skimpy dress blew aside. A carnie barker stood nearby enticing the farmers to enter the tent for a better look. I swear.