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You're not the only one here to recall that day. I was in the front yard of our home in Virginia near the air base where my father was a new Captain stationed with a P-40 squadron. I was wearing my "Sam Brown Belt" U.S. Army Air Corps uniform tailored to fit a 9-year old. I understood what happened when my mother called me into the house crying and my father was donning his uniform and packing a flight bag. He left the next week for California and we saw him again two years later when he took command of a squadron of P-47s on their way to Europe after 2 weeks of leave.

At 12 years old we collected toothpaste tubes, old tire rims, iron fences and gates and anything else that was useful to melt down and throw at the enemy. Each week at school we bought war stamps we put in a little book and eventually traded them in for a $25 war bond. The family Pontiac was on concrete blocks until 1945 and we all had "Victory" gardens, food ration books (the red one were for meat and bacon)--and don't even think about finding chewing gum or candy with sugar.

It was a different time to grow up, especially when the dads started coming home (most of them).

With very few exceptions, Americans joined in the war effort and had a singular purpose and focused on the common objective of war fighting and winning.

Of course, we had a war footing in which everyone sacrificed and president and war cabinet who had an idea of what they were doing and how to win; that would be a nice change.