Russell Long
Centennial, CO
Category: Being a child during WWII

I was born December 26, 1938 making my birthday come on the day after Christmas. I was my father's older of two sons. My brother came 27 months later. During the earlier years of the war, leave was forbidden for any event except the death of one's own spouse or child. Attendance at funerals, weddings, anniversaries of family, friends, or favorites was just out of the question. And everyone knew it, lived with it, and nobody requested such privilege, regardless of the sentiment involved. But my father would not be separated from his firstborn son on the latter's birthday. Nobody knew if anyone would survive the next day's events--war the most dangerous of events and my dad was not one to let his precious son's birthday pass without participation. There might not be another chance.

Facing this seemingly insoluble predicament, my mother bundled her three-year old son into his warmest clothes: topped by a mackinaw jacket, and a pullover stocking cap. My father clandestinely whisked me away to the day's field training and I spent my third, fourth, fifth, and sixth birthdays swaddled in an olive-drab green US Army blanket hidden in the back of dad's command car, half-track, or whatever vehicle was involved. Dad's staff officer's supervised my presence in the Army vehicle hiding me between equipment and themselves. These officers were gone from their own children and semi-adopted me as pseudo-uncles.

During the war, we were stationed all across the country but we Christmased at Fort Sill, the US Artillery Center, every Christmas of the war and we were never caught or discovered.

Russell Long
Centennial, CO
Category: Being a child during WWII

Particularly during the early and mid years of the war, nobody had any assurance that they would survive to celebrate another birthday, anniversary, Christmas, or New Year. And every Christmas, my mom and dad would spend more than they could sensibly afford on presents for their sons. Relatives would come if they could and would afford the rationed gasoline and if their tires permitted. And one Christmas (I don't remember which) the usual overabundant flood of gifts for the two children overflowed the living room of our quarters. Bright and shiny toys for the boys...!

Baubles, trinkets, small amusements from the tree and out from under it engulfed the living room. Anything and everything was bought for the children because--who knew tomorrow? An Army's business is killing people and accidents happen in training and the potential of combat always loomed.

At the end of the day, after entirely too much ado and the uproar of gifts and their opening, after all of their parent's money overspent for the two little youngsters--what were their favorites?

The older son found a small cardboard jewelry box amongst the shredded colored wrapping paper and torn ribbons. He put a native Oklahoma Stuart pecan in it, and went around the house shaking it for the rattling noise it would make. And his little brother did the same!

Kate
Fort Collins, CO
Category: Being a Child During WWII

A home-front memory I have is going to visit my cousin at Horseneck Beach, Westport, Massachusetts, during the war, when I was seven. While my mother visited with her mother, my thirty-year-old cousin took me out on the beach.

It was a cold, windy day and we were looking for sand dollars and anything thing else we could find. I remember there were lots of things washed up as no one was clearing the beach at that time of year.

There were also tire tracks running parallel to the water. Blackberry Point, about a mile away, was a military installation. While we walked, a jeep came by on patrol. They were going up and down the beach several times a day looking for evidence of saboteurs landing on the beach after swimming from submarines.