Interview with someone who lived during WWII Essay

1.Question Were you involved in the state of war? Any family members involved in the war? issue He was non involved in the war because he was too young. However, his paternity worked as an electric engineer for the army and operated radars. He had two uncles who were also in the army and had some other uncle in the navy.2.Question Were you vigorous in civil defense, Red Cross, war industries, other volunteer activities?Answer He was in the boy sc bug out(a)s and was extremely patriotic. He coded junk of aluminum, steel, iron, and paper for the war effort. He did not see this job as a burden and even competed for respect by trying to collect the or so materials. He was also a coastal watcher and was designate to watch for enemy submarines along the eastern coast. However, he never in reality saw one(a).3.Question Any military experiences or personal anecdotes?Answer He became a casualty-reporting officer in 1957 when he was stationed in Alaska. Before then, he was generally pro-war, merely after telling two or common chord wives that their husbands were dead, he became more passive. He utter his job as a casualty-reporting officer changed his watch towards war and caused him to question the Vietnam state of war and the policies of President Bush.4.Question How did you view the war then?Answer During the time of the war, he was nonchalant to the war. In fact, he express the worst part roughly the attack on os lay down got was that he could not go to the brim on that day. As a child, he did not understand much or so the war. For example, he said that when he learned about the bead Harbor invasion, he asked himself whats a Pearl Harbor? and when he take in about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he asked himself whats an atomic bomb? He viewed the war as a game, because he never experienced some(prenominal) major losses. He thought that at that place was no way the UnitedStates could lose and never worried for one second.5.Question How did you view military or political leaders during instauration war II?Answer He admits that most of his opinions c formerlyrning them were affected by his gravels views and by movies, which he labels as propaganda. For example, he hated Himmler, Goebbels, Hitler, Goering, and Tojo because movies represent them as villains. He disliked Franklin D. Roosevelt because of his farm policies, which forced farmers to kill pigs in frame to drive pork prices higher. He liked Churchill and idolized Dwight D. Eisenhower.6.Question Who do you feel was responsible for the war?Answer He said the cut were responsible for humanness War II because they created unfavorable and impossible situations for the Germans with their amends system. He said that Hitler would never have risen into power if France had not burdened the German economy so heavily. He also entangle that Japan was responsible for the war in the east, but the United States could have prevented the war fr om escalating by lifting its embargo on Japanese products.7.Question Did you suffer whatever deprivations because of the war?Answer During World War II, wits aim worked with radars as an electrical engineer and was sent oversees to North Africa in 1943. Bill missed his father after he was called off to duty. Other than that, he suffered no other deprivations.8.Question Do you have both comments about limit?Answer Rationing was not in truth hard for his family because he had many relatives who were farmers. He maintained that the rations were adequate for his family and friends and that he never knew anyone who wolfish because of rationing. However, gun rations caused many problems for his familybecause they moved around often.9.Question What were you doing when you first heard the news of Pearl Harbor?Answer He was getting ready to go to the beach in Florida when he received a phone call from his father saying that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. His dad had to go directly to Pearl Harbor but he was just saddened that he could not go to the beach. It was not until several days later did he find out the severity of the situation when he saw a movie elucidate the Pearl Harbor attack.10.Question Did you distinguish about the Nisei inhabit outs?Answer No, like most Americans, he did not know about the Nisei camps until after the war had ended. At the University of Illinois, he had a close Japanese friend, ***** *********, who lived in a Nisei camp during World War II. Yukio was eleven years old when he was drive out of his home and sent into a Nisei camp. Yukio told Bill that there was set of food in the Nisei camp. The only bad memory he had of the camp was the giant fence that he was not allowed to cross in order to get his soccer ball. After Yukios family was released from the Nisei camp, they moved to Chicago to light the bad memories that remained present in the west coast.11.Question How were Judaic refugees received in America? Were the welco med?Answer Bill said that as a child, he knew very(prenominal) little about the immigration laws for the Japanese and the Jewish. However, he distinctively remembered many restaurants and hotels hanging signs that read no Jews allowed. He said that he always felt sympathetic towards the Jews because he had a close Jewish friend during the war.12.Question How were African Americans treated during the war?Answer He said that he never had any friends that were African American during his childhood. He said there were no African Americans or any othernon-Caucasian races in any of the schools that he attended. He told me that African Americans were generally underused because they were thought of as inferior to the Caucasians. He even told me that some African Americans underwent experimental testing similar to the experiments that Hitler had used on the Jews. At Tuskegee, the United States military infect them with lues in order to study its set up on gentleman beings.13.Question Was the war discussed in school?Answer He said that kids normally talked about the war during school, but their teachers abstained from discussions about the war. Even in tale class, teachers refused to discuss current events because they felt that the kids were too young to learn about the war. However, the children were allowed to sing patriotic songs for almost an hour every day.I call in that Bill answered my questions without any bias or prejudice. He is currently winning many history courses at ******** so his historical knowledge is very accurate. His answers are impartial because he likes to view the war from different viewpoints. He told me that one must study World War II not only from the side of the Allies, but must gain the perspective of the Axis. During our interview, he constantly got off the subject and started lecturing me about the history of World War II. In fact, he brought several of his college textbooks and used his books to prove whatever point he was tr ying to make. Initially, after he told me about the syphilis experimental testing that the United States military administered on African Americans, I was reluctant to believe him (though I never showed any skepticism). However, he took out one of his textbooks, showed me the article on the Tuskegee experimental testing, and immediately gained my complete self-assurance and confidence.Both his historical knowledge of World War II and his short (and probably long-term) memory are very accurate. I trust that the answers he gave concerning his childhood are also very accurate. Another reason that I bring forward he was not biased in answering my questions was that he answered every one of them. He never tried to avoid any specific questions. Also, none of his relatives was injured or killed because of the war so it is incredible for him to hold a grudge against theGermans or the Japanese. However, one of the adverse effects of being too impartial is that he is unable to formulate a ny of his own opinions.For example, when I asked him who he thought was responsible for the war, he gave me a fifteen-minute history lecture about how France burdened Germany with reparation payments, which left the Germans economically destitute. Then he went on to discuss all the causes that were listed in his book, which took another fifteen minutes. After listening patiently for almost half an hour, I asked him who he felt was responsible for the war when he was a child. He answered, When I was a kid, I was more interested in sports so I didnt really care who was responsible for the war. Movies. Movies and my father convince me that Hitler and Tojo were the ones responsible for the war.I learned many things about bearing during World War II from Bill. For example, I learned that kids during that era were pro-war and very patriotic. This may have resulted from movies that were designed for propaganda. At that time, everyone went to the movies at least once a week, which may hav e greatly contributed to patriotism and to the war effort. I also learned that many children were active in collecting put away of aluminum, steel, iron, or paper for the war effort. I do not know if these scraps actually helped build a lot of planes and ships, because it is foolish to think that there was that much scraps lying on the ground for the kids to collect, but it probably did get everyone involved and committed to the war effort.In addition, I learned that few Americans knew about the Nisei camps or the German concentration camps during World War II. It was not revealed to the public until after the war ended. Immigration laws were not widely publicized during the war either. I learned that rationing in the United States was not too awful and that no one starved or went hungry because of it. In fact, many felt that rationing was a major step up from the hunger caused by the Great Depression. Finally, I learned that some African Americans were the subjects of experimental testing during World War II. How can Americans shamelessly condemn Hitlers experimental testing on the Jews when they are committing the same crime?