“That’s the phrase that stuck out to me, too. It’s true of most WWII vets I’ve known.”
It was true of my father too, a combat medic in Europe. He became a lifer, and in due course volunteered for Viet Nam. When he came back he would wake my mother up with occasional nightmares . . . about WWII. RVN had churned it all up somehow.
They are both gone now. I miss them so.
That’s right. The guys who actually experienced the terrors and horrors of that war did not talk about it. Daddy was in the Army infantry - N. Africa, Sicily, Italy, Germany. Had flashbacks to specific battles when he would have to be put under anesthesia to have surgery for anything. The thing about flashbacks is that they ARE like really being there; going back to that specific time and trauma. - He did get to where he could talk about it a little in his later years; but not much.