My matrilineal uncle was w/the infantry attached to a tank battalion in North Africa, and was killed in the carnage known as the "Battle of the Bulge". I also had a patrilineal uncle who was one of those air force heros for a day after his plane was shot down and he was killed. The military intercepted his last letter home to my grandparents, and used it for propaganda without their permission--so the letter was splashed all over in the paper. Both men were mere cannon fodder for the war machine. No great moral sacrifice, no glory, just an utter waste of human life.

The "hero" uncle apparently received medals posthumously, and all that. But the story is told by one of my aunts that neither of my grandparents ever mentioned his name after his death. In fact, on that side of the family, my uncle's service and death in WWII was almost like a family skeleton--we rarely spoke of it, even after my grandparents were dead. I have no idea what my grandparents ever did with all the memorabilia stuff the military sent to them, as we never saw any evidence of it in their home, and my aunt never recalled seeing it either. Just a few pictures of that uncle is all that has survived in our family photos and memorabilia.

My father, also in the infantry, was a POW for 8 months. He never spoke of his war experiences, just like many other conscripts who were forced to serve. My father never expressed any desire to congregate with former soldiers, to tell war stories, or to memorialize "the fallen", including his brother the hero, to whom he was very close. He got as far away from the military as fast as he could once he got home, and never looked back--at least, not in any way he shared with family and friends.

I asked him not long before he died why he never talked about his experiences in the war. The subject came up when our daughter, working on a school "family history" project, asked him about his time in the war. He told her the basic information, ie when he was drafted, where he was stationed, the fact that he finished the war as a POW in Germany--but nothing else.

His response to my questioning was that no one should be proud of what they did in war, especially those who saw combat in the military. He also said if he knew what the US was doing "in the name of freedom" going into the draft what he did coming out, he would have chosen prison as a resister. He never tried to justify his military service as "fighting fascism" or any such thing. In fact, all I really remember strongly of that conversation with him, was his comment that what he did in WWII was "spill the blood of new innocents in the same old blood soaked dirt rich men had fought over for centuries". He never seemed ashamed of himself, just disgusted with the whole experience, and the ways it was glorified. I expect there were more than a few WWII vets who shared a lot of those same feelings as my father had about it. But we aren't allowed to hear their voices on Memorial Day. Maybe if we were, we wouldn't have to endure the folly of war anymore.

Personally, I was most deeply influenced in my coming of age years during the Vietnam War, by the writings of Kurt Vonnegut. My father is the person who first introduced me to "Slaughterhouse Five". Ironically, Vonnegut, like my matrilineal uncle who was killed there, was an infantryman at the Battle of the Bulge. He survived and was sent to Dresden.