Studs Number 5

Peggy Terry:

        Peggy Terry was a working class women who struggled through the great depression. It is sad to think of the world like this, but this struggle was very prominent during the depression. People struggled to find work, and often struggled with life its self. As she would say "We were living day to day" (190), and this shows that she was struggling. All of their money went to necessities, rather than luxuries. Luckily for her, she was able to take advantage the booming economy. She got her first job after the great depression at a shell-loading plant. The conditions were not good, as she recalled "it was difficult to breathe" (191). Even with the harsh conditions she was still happy for what she what doing. It was also interesting the way that people were rather oblivious to the details of the war. The media played a huge role, in changing the prospective of the war. This connects to our discussions in clash when we talked about how the media completely changed people's perspective on Vietnam. Also the war in general, changed people. It changed Peggy's husband because he became an "drunkard" when he had never drank before the war. The media made it seem as if we were winning, yet it was clear that the war was a bloody stalemate because it was very challenging for us to catch the VC. The war gave people jobs, and the post war future was very bright, yet most it was short lived. The question that was raised is what happened to create the abrupt shift in Americas morale. We had come out of a win, yet it was quickly destroyed. this shows us what war was like on the home front. The home front was more positive while the battlefront was bloody and gory. This story connects to my grandma and grandpa because my grandma to had to work during the war as she waited for him to return.
      

E.B. Sledge

       E.B. Sledge also lived and worked during WWII. He was a marine, who got a front line perspective of what the war really was. He was not fooled by the misconceptions of the media, or falsehoods of the American public. Sledge got a clear sense of the Japanese tactic of "no surrender" (197), and this clearly made the war tough to fight. Most of the soldiers that were "afraid so much, day after day, that I got tired of being scared" (198).This fear led to hate and make the soldiers desire to kill the enemy greater. They often developed an attitude of "no mercy" because that was the way that the soldiers fought against them. He was able to see that war changed people. The made the Americans see the Japanese soldiers as below themselves. They were able to bring them down below human standards. This story really shows the tragedy of war. It proved that the war changed people and was devastating. Men who would have never dreamed of the stuff that they did, eventually turned to it. The war, as a whole, helped many on the home front, yet devastated others on the war front.