Who did people heroicize back in WWII? Their dads?[/quote]
Yeah, for me growing up it was my dad. He’d been in the Marines in WWII and Korea and never talked about his experiences. Came home after Korea and got his master’s in Aeronautical Engineering on the GI Bill (he’d been in school working on it when the Korean War broke out) and went to work. I didn’t find out until after I got out of the Army that he had decorations out the wazoo, including 2 Bronze Stars and a Medal of Valor.
My uncle (his brother) was the same way. Flew fighters for the Marines in WWII and Korea, got his MBA from Stanford and went to work for Merrill Lynch. He was badly shot up during WWII (he carried most of a pair of Japanese 20mm cannon shells in his back until the day he died), but volunteered to fly again during Korea.
No bragging, no swagger, just quiet professionals who did their duty on behalf of their country. Neither my dad nor my uncle glorified war, to the contrary, both abhorred war, but understood that, sometimes, you don’t have the option of not fighting.
