God Bless those Americans that gave everything to achieve our victory in WWII.
I doubt we will ever see that level of patriotism again.
My Dad lived in Chicago his entire life. He experienced possibly a trip to Wisconsin or two in his youth, never farther in his world. When he reached 17 he was able to enlist in the Navy as a See-bee. He was immediately sent to the South Pacific and moved to the Marines. He went first to Siapan then to Tinian. He told me of the constant bombing by the Japanese and the Japanese snipers on both islands. On one occasion on Tinian he was talking with his best buddy when his buddies head exploded from a snipers bullet. He spent lots of time out in the mountains with a flamethrower burning the Japanese out of caves, he kept pictures of them burned dead and dragged out of the caves.
He also described the preparations of the invasion of Japan, all the equipment that was being stock piled on the island.He also spoke of the preparations for the Atomic bomb drops and how the bomber was modified for the bomb and the loading of the bomb. I remember him describing how they all watched in wonder at the overloaded bomber struggled to take off. He said that the Bomber crew told the solders that they were going to end the War, they all had heard that before and no body knew what a A bomb was.
After the War ended he told me about the UN believable amount of military equipment, planes, tanks, and everything stockpiled for the Japanese invasion was pushed over the cliffs into the ocean to make room for all the service men to get on ships and go home.
If you ever wanted to see my Dad go off, just bring some idiot around who started with the "We never should have dropped the A bomb on the Japs" narrative.My Dad would go nuts telling the fool how many soldiers they told them would be lost in the Japanese invasion.
My Dad would NEVER buy anything from Japan.
He died at 92, I miss him everyday!

My head spins when I think of a very naive 17 year old back in that time suddenly getting sent to the South Pacific to places they never even heard of.

We owe the Greatest Generation a prayer everyday of out lives for the incredible sacrifice they all made. I'm shamed by what our country has became I'm sure they would be too.