The stories of Peggy Terry and E.B. Sledge work nicely when read together because they give such differentiating perceptions of World War II. Peggy Terry shares a typical story for a woman on the homefront, who is actually seeing some benefits as a result of the war. E.B. Sledge tells a common story for a soldier serving overseas in Japan. The diversity between their experiences is helpful to the understanding of someone looking back at the war.
Peggy Terry’s encounter is a story of oblivion: she did not really understand the war and almost saw it as a positive because it served as a chance to make money. She had no idea what they war meant because she was living day to day, so she did not have time to think about big things like the war. She worked in a factory making shells, but it never crossed her mind that these shells would be used to kill people. Women saw the job openings as opportunity and a step towards equality. To many women, such as Peggy’s mother, it was their first real job, so they did not actually feel the need to consider the purpose of their work. She described a story of a woman on a bus saying she hoped the war did not end until she got her refrigerator paid for, and then an old man hit her on the head with an umbrella. The story almost summarizes the oblivion of women on the homefront. They had gone through all this struggle with the Depression and were now making money, so they are put in a very awkward position. Peggy declared, “I look back at the war with sadness. I wasn’t smart enough to think too deeply back then. We had a lotta good times and we had money and we had food on the table and the rest was paid”. Peggy knew that war is a terrible thing, but she could not truly embrace the idea until she had to live with it. She was looking forward for the war to end for her husband to come home. He came home a drunkard who had awful nightmares and would slap her and her kids around. She was not aware of the horrors of the war until her husband came home. The war ended up turning her against religion and by its end she just associated it with awful.
E.B. Sledge remembers the war as a time of helpless savagery. The Japanese fought by a code of no surrender, so the American soldiers stopped feeling mercy towards them. He tells a story of trying to help a weak, docile, and abandoned Japanese soldier, but the soldier just ended up trying to kill him. The soldiers would truly form hatred toward the Japanese. E.B. had a brother who served in Germany and said that once you captured a German you realized that they were just like you, but it was not like that with the Japanese. E.B. explained, “You knew all you had was that particular moment you were living”. He watched friends and comrades constantly die inches away from him. He knew that he could easily die any second. E.B. not only had to live with death but also saw the worst in men. They would steal the gold teeth of the dead Japanese and do brutish acts towards their bodies. He explained “We were out there, human beings, the most highly developed form of life on earth, fighting each other like wild animals”. World War II was essentially an experience of evil for E.B. He consistently saw men commit the worst atrocities possible and even saw himself doing so with no reservations.
A woman on the homefront and a man serving overseas receive two completely definitions of war. I value both of their perceptions, yet as an outsider I cannot relate to either. We studied the role of women as well as the experiences of soldiers, but looking at the two personal stories side by side gives me a uniquely complex view of World War II.
