Studs Terkel #5

Peggy Terry worked in a factory with her sister and mother loading shells, ammunition, and other materials to help in the production for necessities for World War II. Unlike others Peggy actually enjoyed going to work because it gave her something to do and she knew that the money she could collect could help towards create a better life for herself and her family. Though she was not very knowledgeable about what she was making at work she just found joy in going to work. She was not very connected to what was going on with the world as she was not very aware of the war that was going on, and this could be due to the fact that she didn't have a radio like many others who received their news from. She stated that the radios were mostly a part of the rich people's lives as she said, "having a radio was a luxury." This can relate back to the Great Depression that we learned about earlier in the year because it shows that a majority of the citizens in the country were still recovering from this economic downfall and that a radio was not a necessity for the middle class citizens at the time. Though she had a job along with her mother they did not allow for any flexibility in the job. Peggy's grandmother was very sick and on the verge of death and Peggy's mother wanted to take a leave of absence to help her out, but instead the company fired her because they did not give anybody any time off. In Peggy's time working in the factory she had built up a hate for the Japanese even though she did not have any personal interactions with them. All she knew was that the American soldiers were fighting against them and that was enough for her to create a hate for them. Along with not knowing much about the war, Peggy did not realize the meanings of human rights and had no idea of the cruelty going on in the concentration camps. This puts Peggy in a bad position because if she is ever in trouble she would not know how to fight for her rights and would be at a disadvantage. Many people in the workforce most likely built up a similar dislike to the Japanese citizens as they knew that their American soldiers were fighting their lives against them.

E.B. Sledge was in a different situation that Peggy as he was a soldier on the Pacific area of the battlefield. Sledge was only 19 years old when he had to enter the war. This can relate to the recent Terkel reading about Bob Rasmus because he was only 14 years old when he entered the war as a soldier. Both of these kids were very young and brave men to have the courage to serve for the country at such a young age. It just amazes me that so many of these soldiers that had to serve in the war were teenagers my age that were fighting for their lives everyday trying to help out the country. Being at such a young age these soldiers needed to gain friendships with each other in order to have trust. These close relationships among the soldiers helped the boys deal with their low points and carry on with their efforts. As sledge describes one of his stories he talks about a Japanese soldier. The soldier was already captured and instead of accepting defeat he tried to kill himself along with another American soldier in a suicide bombing attack. This was just the way that the Japanese soldiers were trained and they had to do anything to help out their country in the war. Sledge learned from this that he had to be able to have courage and be aware of the things going on around him. He had to cope with the terrible images of the dead bodies around him and carry on with his attacks. Just from watching the clip today in class from Saving Private Ryan shows me that this must have been extremely difficult to deal with the images surrounding them as bodies were blowing up all over the place. Close companions were dying left and right and they had to move on from these hardships and keep on fighting. It was hard to even see the images on the film so I could imagine how hard it must be to fight in the war and be seeing people getting killed all over the place.