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My father told us a number of stories when we were young but later mostly talked about Sugar Loaf. That he stayed in the Marines after the war may have meant his attitude was different from those whose service was only during the war. (He had already served 4 years from 1936 to 1940 when there was no draft...he became an officer during the war.)

The man who wrote Flags of Our Fathers said his father never talked about the war--his father was supposedly one of the flag-raisers in the famous photo from Iwo Jima (although some have questioned whether he is actually in the photo).

A former professor at my university (now deceased) was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and spent the rest of the war as a POW. Truly horrendous experiences. He finally wrote a book about his experiences and that seemed to help him.

Flags of Our Fathers was very well done. The story of Ira Hayes was so sad.

Mom's family tree had a member who was stationed with the Army in the Philippines during 1941. His family lived there also. As the war clouds were gathering he sent them back to the U.S. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines he was captured and thought to have perished during the Bataan Death March. Decades later his son, who as a small child was in the Philippines before Pearl Harbor, went back and tried to determine the fate of his father. It turns out not only did he survive the Bataan Death March and imprisonment in the Philippines, but he also survived the voyage from the Philippines to Japan on 1 of those horribly crowded prison ships that managed to dodge being sunk by U.S. Navy submarines. He later perished in a POW camp in Japan. His remains, along with many other American POWs, were later recovered and interred in a mass grave at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.