“...Both of my parents served in WW2. ...”
It was that kind of time... and they were those kind of people.
My whole neighborhood was WWII and Korean war vets. There was an older gentlemen two doors down from me who was World War 1 - I used to sit on the porch with him and listen to the Phillies baseball game on his transistor radio with him... he’d smoke his pipe, and I’d talk his ear off, and he was a wonderful old guy.
When I was in my 20s and moving away, he was in his 80s, wife gone, I went over and a shot of bourbon with him, man to man, and to say goodbye. He said he’d always liked when I listened to the game with him... never had kids of his own.
He passed away a year after I moved away. I cried like a baby when I found out.