Most Americans have no childhood memories of living in a nation at war.  Worries of  being bombed, killed, or captured never cast a shadow over their growing-up years. Yes, we’ve sent our young men overseas  to fight in many foreign wars, but the threat of it occurring here in the United States never entered their minds.  But if you’re in your 80’s or 90’s, it’s DEJA VU:   WW2  childhood memories come back to haunt us during the war in Ukraine..

This is how it felt to a 5 year old girl, when we heard America  had entered World War II.  I remember my father standing in front of the radio, jiggling the change in his pocket.  My mother cried in the kitchen as she mashed the potatoes.  My older siblings sat quietly, while I danced around the living room, blissfully unaware of the horrors that lay ahead for our country.  Daddy had four children, so he wasn’t drafted.  But my uncle only had three kids, and he had  to go in the army. He stopped by our house the night before he left, and the grown ups  drank a lot of  beer.  That was a year or so into the war, when they were running out of able bodied men to fight the Axis powers..

Many things were rationed, including gas.  We walked to school or into town.  Our old Chevie was used only for going to Church, or to drive my father back and forth to work.  You got tokens for rationed items like coffee and sugar.  I didn’t have real ice cream until I was ten years old.  Grandpa was a farmer, so we had more red meat on the table than our neighbors.  Still, we ate a lot of Spam. Nobody complained about any of these sacrifices.  We were willing to do anything it took to provide our army with whatever they needed to defeat the Axis.

There was fear in the air, although our parents put on a brave front.  If a freight train rumbled through town at night, I awakened with  anxiety,  sure  that the Germans were marching into town..  Secretly, I assembled a first aid kit with band aids and iodine and cloth bandages, in case a bomb dropped on our city. We had air raid sirens and blackouts and other activities to prepare us for a foreign invasion.  Walking home from school, you saw blue and gold stars hanging in front windows.  Sometimes, you heard  a mother crying with a telegram in her hand, while neighbors gathered round to comfort. Meanwhile, children in Europe actually were being bombed, maimed, killed and starved in the horrors of war.

When you spend the first years of your life under the cloud of war, you  never really forget. . What will the children of Ukraine remember, and how will they ever recover from the terrors they’ve endured while fleeing for their lives and struggling to survive as refugees in a foreign land.

Now I look at my grandchildren and wonder how it will affect their outlook on life. First, they’ve endured years of isolation due to the  Covid pandemic..  Now, they’re seeing Ukraine children  crammed onto trains, and kissing their fathers good bye. Perhaps we grandparents understand what they’re going through, more than their own parents, who grew up in a country that  felt peaceful and safe.

DÉJÀ VU:  WW2 Childhood  memories come back to haunt us.