An Oral History of World War II

After reading the introduction of the oral history of WWII I realized that this war really changed the United States as a whole. This gave me a great background on information leading into the story of Bob Rasmus the rifleman. In this introduction they described how this war changed the psyche and the face of the world as it gave them a different outlook to the rest of the world. In this war there were many negative aspects of it as many citizens struggled to survive everyday. In the introduction it said, "First thing you talked about is what you wanted in your stomach."(165) This shows that many of the citizens at the time were uncertain of their meals everyday which can directly relate to the Great Depression that we learned about early in the Stud Terkel readings as many families were poor and did not know the food that they would eat for the day. Though there were many negatives from this war it created many openings for others as it gave women and minorities a better chance at getting a good job in a good enviroment. As many of the many were serving in the army it opened up plenty oppurtunities for others and these companies were finally willing to hire these people in order to keep their company in business. The New Deal that was passed created many jobs for all citizens and gave many people a good chance at becomming succesful. This relates to World War I because when this war was declared it caused total war to occur and in both situations minorites took over many of the jobs that the men occupied before the war. Though this opened up many oppurtunites for the women the war create some horrible images for the men serving in it. As they would walk past stacks and piles of their dead enemies it created a unforgettable image in these soldiers minds as they look at their enemies in the eyes. Overall this war was good for the country because it opened up chances for others and help bring the country together as they all had a common goal to win the war. In the story of Bob Rasmus he faced a hard situation as he had to serve in the army when he was only 14 years old. I can relate to this because I cannot imagine having to serve in the army when I was only 14 years old. To be honest I cannot even imagine serving in the army at 17 years old, so Bob needed to have a lot of courage to risk his life to serve for his country. He wanted to prove to others his manhood by entering this war, but he did not realize the images that he would be faced with. He had only thought about the positive parts of war and did not yet really think about having to actually kill others. As he grows throughout the story we realize that Bob's mindset changes and he has the integrity to kill his enemies. He turned into a completely new person by the end of the war from the beginning as he realized that he needed to change his mindset in order to survive this war. Not only did the mindset of Bob change from before the war to after, but the mindset of the entire country because America knew that it needed to do anything possible in order to win this war.