Abstract: This was the response from an American soldier from World War II when asked if he had anything else to add to a government survey of servicemen's opinions. Expressing a theme found in the views of many of his comrades, the soldier showed hostility to a home front populace that he saw as uncaring, materialistic, and at odds with soldiers' understanding of the war effort. This gap only presented further problems with the war's conclusion. Veterans of the war had been returning in substantial numbers beginning in 1944 and increasingly government officials and the public-at-large recognized that the successful integration of large numbers of military personnel into civilian life presented an enormous challenge for postwar America. Although the home front began to grapple with what some termed "The Veteran Problem," a large segment of American servicemen also expressed their own misgivings about the shape of the postwar world and specifically their place within it. Veterans and nonveterans did share many of the same hopes and dreams for the postwar era, but the differences in their respective wartime experiences and perspectives also fostered disagreements between many former soldiers and civilians about the role of the veteran in American society. Developed by the War Advertising Council, this ad sought to help civilians understand the problems of returning veterans and to avoid insensitive reactions to soldiers' wartime experiences.KeywordsCivilian LifeMilitary ExperienceAmerican SoldierMilitary LifeMale SoldierThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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