[oh8eleven]

impressed by his Father’s service - but we and they were simply NOT allowed to discuss it.
My dad was WWII Marine. Never discussed what he saw - and even after I returned home from VN, the only thing he ever said to me was,"Not much fun was it?"
I think what most WWII vets saw was just so horrible it took all of their inner strength to put it behind them and talking about it would just resurrect those awful experiences.
They did it, forgot it and just got on living the rest of their lives. I truly miss all of them.

[T-Bird45]

They did it, forgot it and just got on living the rest of their lives.

For some portion of them, that was the case. For others, pretending to forget it only led to larger problems with "living" the rest of their lives. As your father pointed out with his question to you, even "good wars" are horrible in the damage done to the human psyche. Some handle it better than others. My father was one who did not handle it well, dying of alcoholism at age 53 when I was a senior in high school.