Original air date: April 27, 2023
KATIE WHITE: The legacy of war emerges in communities in a variety of ways.
After the Second World War, many veterans returned to their communities and assumed key positions there. Each readjusted to civilian life in their own way.
Items they brought home from war such as letters, uniforms, or medic bags may have continued being used, been put on display, or simply been stored away.
Some men chose not to speak of their war experiences at all. Some shared their stories overtly. Spoken or unspoken, the wartime experiences of World War II veterans shaped how the next generation saw them and what was learned from their examples.
Lifelong educator and historian, Ross Peterson reflects here on how such men shaped his hometown of Montpelier, Idaho.
ROSS PETERSON: I think as a young man growing up, some of the people that had the most dramatic impact on me were teachers who had served in World War Two - as well as some of the neighbors and the people you lived with. And it's interesting to me, which veterans talked about which ones didn't, and then how years later you'd find out.
Our high school history teacher, Mr. Rich, I was really, really close to him. And he was married to my mother's cousin. He was a nose gunner in World War Two, but right up till the end, he never talked about it. So later, even though he was in his 90s - he just passed away this June - I talked to him about it. And he said, 'You know, a lot of our bombing runs, we just dropped the bombs. I never could want to visualize where they landed. And I always remember the faces of the ground crew when we came back, because a lot of us didn't come back.'
He said, 'I just made up my mind that that's happened. It's over. And therefore I wasn't talking about it. I'm not talking to my children about it.' And that's how he chose to live it.
We had a great school teacher that was in the Bataan Death March, and he talked about it every day, even to the degrees of how they were tortured, you know. And that that is so vivid. And he ended up writing a book about it.
I had a Scoutmaster, who was also the high school chemistry teacher, who became our principal. His name was Harold Phillips, and he was a native of Smithfield, went to Utah State, went into the Army, ending up in the medical corps being a medic for the whole winter of 1945 during the Battle of the Bulge, and then during the occupation of Germany.
When you were with him - like he took us on an unbelievable scout trip once, took us to the Grand Canyon, took us to Hoover Dam - we saw all these things and you never worried because he was there. You knew he could take care of you no matter what the situation. I watched him once when one of the boys broke his leg when we were skiing and how he handled it. But I think in his mind, I've seen a lot worse than this. So I'm not rushing him home. The rest of you finish skiing, you know and things like that.
Our other scoutmaster was a guy named Warren Wilcox, who had been on every amphibious landing in the Pacific. And I never heard him say a word about it or Mr. Phillips, either one. But nevertheless, you knew through your parents and other people that these were battle tested veterans who were not going to let you be tested.
I mean, Mr. Phillips, his whole deal was, 'Don't sell yourself short because you're from a little town in Idaho. You got a brain. You got power. You can go succeed.'
And Mr. Willcox's was all, you know, physical. 'You can do this job. You can you can tighten up that barbed wire fence. Even though you're a little scrawny kid, you can do it better.' You know, it was more trying to reach you to whatever you're doing, that task, that you do it as best as it could be done.
KATIE WHITE: Support for Bringing War Home comes from Utah State University, the National Endowment for the Humanities' Dialogues on the Experience of War, and Utah Humanities. Introduction written by Annika Shinn. More resources available at upr.org
