Everyone has a story, every story has stories within that story. I asked my grandmother about what she saw during WWII and the difference between that and the Vietnam War. She was young during WWII but she was in NYC the day it was declared over. I enjoyed interviewing her because she would answer my questions in a story like manner. All I had to do was press record and take some notes. I found writing an oral history to be easier than some essays, but it may not always be the case without a good interview.
My only problem with writing an oral history is that you cannot change what they say. You cannot add on and you cannot erase all the parts of the story you do not like. If you do you are not being a good journalist. Along with that editing is very critical. I recorded my interview and it helped immensely. The only thing I had to do was type what she said word for word and put it onto the document. My organization of this essay was quite different I started with the end and I went backwards then forwards. Although I liked the change of pace. My words are all in italics but here is my essay to see what I mean. Enjoy!
A
Time of War is Different every Time
With
every war you expect the same ending, however that isn’t always the case.
Celebration always seems prevalent when a war ends but it doesn’t always end in
that manner. My grandmother grew up during WWII and lived through the Vietnam
War. She was in New York City the day WWII had ended.
We were all in New
York. There were only three of us children at that time, it was Eddie and
myself and Anne Marie. We were staying at a hotel. We got up and cleaned up, we
were going to have room service breakfast. Out the window we could see ticker
tape flying out of windows. When the waiter brought us our breakfast we asked
him, what was going on and he said, “The war ended, World War II in Europe”.
Ticker
tape originated around 1870 and was originally used in regards to stock
machines. It got its name by the ticking sound the machine made. The day World
War II ended, a “Ticker Tape Parade” was held.
We
turned the radio on; we didn’t have television then. And all they had on any station
was that the war was over and people were celebrating. Later that morning we
left the hotel and went to Times Square. I was eight and as we walked through
Times Square the ticker tape on the ground was passed my knees. Everyone you
saw was so happy, it was incredible. I think half of them were drunk but they
were very happy that the war in Europe was over. It was wonderful.
Before that happy day, in a small town in
Northeast Pennsylvania many waited for their loved ones to return.
A
small banner about fifteen inches or so would hang in your window. There would
be a blue star for every soldier that was in the war. Silver stars meant
injured and gold stars meant Killed in Action. Mrs. Murphy had three gold stars
hanging for her three sons. The Dougherty’s had two stars in their window, but
they remained blue. All my uncles but one were in the war. My father’s job at
the United Mine Worker’s was deemed too important to lose. My uncle Hugh was a
brick maker and they said no to him too. My cousins were too young but my
mother’s cousins and my father’s cousins were in. I knew one nurse; she was a
Colonel in Europe.
Besides a banner
that would hang in the window, living on the east coast, every house had black
out curtains in every window. Air wardens would walk the streets at night and
if they saw the slightest glimmer of light they would knock on your door and
tell you to “turn out the light”. At night my father drove with no headlights.
I remember a lot
of things that were fun during WII for kids; we used to stomp on the cans to
flatten them. Although I remember we were only allowed so many pairs of shoes a
year. As kids our feet grew, mine in particular. My mother had to go, on quote,
“the Black Market” to buy me a pair of shoes.
My most vivid
memory is still the ticker tape. There was an office building across from our
hotel. The buildings were older and had no air conditioning so they opened the
windows and threw parachutes made of paper or Kleenex or something like that
out the window. Along with the parachutes ticker tape was being thrown out the
windows everywhere. It was truly a sight to see.
After that the
soldiers came home. They were welcomed home with open arms. If you knew of
anyone’s son coming home, you went to their house, you brought them cakes;
anything you could get your hands on, you brought them over. We had a party in
every house; it was amazing.
Soldiers
coming back from WWII were greeted kindly, but for those who served during
Vietnam it was a different story. It was the exact opposite ending of WWII for
Vietnam.
The students, the
college students and younger hated the war. We lived in Wilmette, Illinois
then. They were embarrassed to say they
fought in Vietnam; no one wore their uniform. There were no parades, no parties
of any kind; it was really a shame. When we went outside, among our friends we
would discuss Vietnam but not with strangers. We were afraid to; you never knew
what they would do.
During the 1968
Democratic Convention in Chicago, I couldn’t take the children down to Gilson
Park in Wilmette because it was all students, college students, and it was
dangerous. We couldn’t go to the beach; we couldn’t do anything. They didn’t
have any money, no place to stay, and there were too many for the Village
Police to do about it. They started coming two or three weeks before the
convention and the Village asked us not to go down there. They had no
sanitation, no shelter; the living conditions were just awful.
People were angry
that we were there and it was perfectly acceptable, they had a right to their
anger. Others were destructive with it. I don’t think anyone liked it, the fact
that we were at war. During WWII it was a righteous anger because of Hitler and
the Holocaust and we knew what was happening over there and the United States
knew it. That was one thing with Vietnam, in Vietnam they weren’t doing any of
that; there wasn't a Hitler. Many people didn’t like it; they didn’t find there
was enough cause to be there. The real problem with Vietnam was that you didn’t
know who your enemy was.
In WWII there were
the trenches and you knew when the enemy was coming but in Vietnam the enemy
could be an eleven-year-old. It wasn’t just hard on little kids, it was hard on
the soldiers; they didn’t think that children could do any wrong. The worst
part of the war was that it was more mental. It seemed as if the soldiers were
mentally abused.
We found out the
war was over on the news. We had seen the footage that war correspondents had filmed
over there before, so we had known what was going on and when the day came that
they said the war was over it was like any other day. I don’t remember what I
was doing that day but there were no celebrations of any kind; there might have
been for when the prisoners of war had returned. The main thing about the Vietnam War that was difficult for the
soldiers was that, they had fought a war where the enemy was unknown. It was an endless fight.
WWII
brought celebration; Vietnam brought cold feelings and shameful soldiers. When
WWII ended it was unlike any celebration that had happened before. The soldiers
were welcomed back with open arms, while the soldiers who fought in Vietnam
felt ashamed and embarrassed to wear their uniforms. Times Square was filled
with laughter and joy on September 2, 1945, but on April 30, 1975 it was just a
normal day.
