Obligations

7 December 2021 marks the eightieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and with it America's entry into World War II. Americans' war experience was substantially different from that of Britons. Michael Goldfarb's father was among the World War II generation christened "The Greatest Generation" in popular culture. He uses the stories he heard growing up from the Americans who fought the war to explore those differences both during the conflict and in the years immediately following. Teddy Reinhart was Michael's best friend's dad. He hoped his time in the Army producing shows would lead to a career in Hollywood, but when the war was over, he was forced to take over the family furniture business. These are memories imperfect and embellished but they create a picture of what America was like during the war years and how the war came to be woven into America's national myth. He acknowledges just how mighty the forces were that propelled the children of these veterans away from that myth when the call came to serve in Vietnam.