[Pravious]

Same here. It wasn’t until after he died and I read his discharge papers that I realized he spent over three months on Okinawa (I don’t think I would have lasted three minutes!).

It wasn’t like it was a secret, or something that distressed him to talk about - he just never did.

[Buttons12]

My grandfathers didn’t talk about it — nor did my grandmother’s. My parents attribute this to a mindset of “savor the present, build the future.”
I think they were too busy absorbing the life they’d received by the grace of God, to look back.

[LoveUSA]

When I inherited my aunt's personal belongings, I was given a box with 2 years of letters that a man stationed in Okinawa wrote to her. The references to the situation there were superficial or redacted, but now I wish I would have contacted him or his family and offered the letters to them.

Before he was discharged he broke up with her because he was Methodist and couldn't abide with raising his children in the Catholic Church.

[bray]

My father never talked about it and was on one of the most decorated destroyers in the war. Would have loved to hear the stories.

[TalBlack]

The WWII generation were extremely concious of those who died in the fight. To talk about your experiences when you got to go home and pick up your life was, to them, somehow implying or claiming more sacrifice than they were willing to do.