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Now it was over, and we had
survived and lived to tell about WWII. Naturally we were relieved and
happy to be going home. In fact, we seemed to be in a dream world.
It was, so life taught us,
too good to be true. There was that ever present, nagging dark cloud
back there in the recesses of our minds. Many of our brothers would not
be going home, and wouldn't be hugging their mothers, wives and
sweethearts on the train platforms and in the bus stations of the United
States. They would not be returning to their fathers handshakes on a job
well done. These men whom we had lived with, who had shared our
joys and fears, and had loved life as much as us, had paid a price that
we, and all other Americans can never repay. In the quiet hours, though,
each of us making that journey home asked ourselves "why not me?"
Finding no answer, we kept on asking it of ourselves, and some of our
God. I want to borrow these great words to express our feelings,
and may we keep them in our hearts as long as we live.
"They shall not grow
old, as we
who are left grow old:
Age shall
not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the
sun
and in the morning
We shall remember them."
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