Reply #19: K&R My Dad was a vet; he's gone now... but my Mom was an Air Raid Warden at Home...

[demodonkey]

...She is 93 and in a wheelchair. Last time we were in D.C. (last winter) we drove past the WWII Memorial. Too cold to get out with the chair etc. that day, so we'll have to come back.

My dad served under Patton in Europe, but in many ways what my mom did during the war meant as much or more. She was a teacher during those years and had her kids collecting milkweed for life vests (called "Mae Wests" at the time.) The kids also wove squares with yarn on a small loom then sewed the squares together to make blankets to send to the soldiers. As an Air Raid Warden she had to learn first aid, then go house to house during bomb drills and make sure all lights were out. If we had actually been bombed, she would have been out on the street doing the same.

We should always remember that not only the military vets helped win WWII. A whole generation at home worked like my mother, or worked the factories etc. that made the goods that made the war effort possible.