Soldier from the War Returning: The Greatest Generation's Troubled…

Peter Jennings coined the now-famous term "The Greatest Generation" - referring to the men and women who grew up during the Great Depression, lived through World War II and then raised families through the tumultuous period of the 1960s. As a country, we have whitewashed the entire generation to be one that put up with hardship and made the best of the little they had. But this is not fair- yes, they went through a lot, but they were not perfect and it is a disservice to act as though they lived Camelot-like lives. Childers wrote this book in an attempt to share with readers how difficult it was for men and women after WWII- how hard it is to settle back into a normal life.

Childers chronicles three families in this book. Willis Allen and his crumbling marriage to Grace after he returns from the war with no legs. Mildred and Tom Childers (the author's own parents) who are unable to re-establish trust in each other after recriminations of infidelity and the death of Mildred's beloved brother in Germany. Michael Gold and his long-term PTSD that would cause him to break out in violent rages and jeopardize his medical career. It's a fascinating, intimate and ultimately very revealing book that brings home the fact that when you've lived through a war, for you, it never ends. Even those who succeeded in coming home and starting fresh were haunted by dreams or "temper tantrums" and divorce rates for veterans skyrocketed after the war ended. The men came back angry, the women didn't trust them, and both sides struggled to form deeper connections.

This is not a happy book. The people who populate it are desperately unhappy much of the time, going through the motions of a Norman Rockwell existence that never materialized for them. But it's also a truly beautiful and haunting narrative. None of the characters is perfect, but there is such a depth of humanity in them, and each one deserves your sympathy and empathy. I can't imagine what it would be like to come home after two high-stress years of war abroad, with very little contact during that time, and try to take up the fragile threads of a marriage once more. I don't know how I would react to the realization that the happy, tall and handsome young man you married is now permanently disabled and terrifyingly angry about it. World War II affected the soldiers that fought in it, but as the author says, some of the scars were even deeper for the ones left behind on the home front.

It is difficult to read a book like this, but also very powerful. The Greatest Generation in the next few decades will have completely disappeared from living memory. It is an injustice to them and all their trials and tribulations to remember them only as an idealized group that did everything perfectly and lived a grand life. They struggled and fought every day to overcome the damage the war did to them and Childers' book is an excellent homage to them. Highly recommended. ( )