Echoes from the Past

As an ex-GI, shopping for some meaning in my seventh decade, I was drawn to the three journals I had kept during World War II. In these yellowing pages, still covered and protected with 1944 brown paper grocery bags, I had hoped to find something about my youth that would, perhaps, illuminate and even explain the exciting journey I am, at the moment, slowly completing. Surprisingly, rereading my teen-age entries (written in blue-black Watermans ink and with lots of misspelling), this older edition was buoyed-up by the sensitivity and insight of his youthful counterpart. When the war in Europe ended, and with our military converted to an Army of Occupation, we young kids in uniform had to make rapid psychological adjustments. Our focus changed from serving our country to, possibly, serving our own needs? Sexuality rapidly rose to first place. The German girls were beautiful. Why fight it? I fell in love with a young woman whom my family would consider a Nazi. (Wasnt every German a Nazi?) What was I going to do when I got back? Bring my girlfriend? Tell my Jewish parents and friends in the Bronx that despite the death camps the Germans could still be pretty nice, intelligent people...even loveable? Young people reading this book will be impressed by how the thoughts of an 18-year old in 1944 are still vitally significant today. Older folks might learn to re-connect with the kid still within them.