[PEN-L:347] Re: Saving Private Ryan

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:>> During WW2 [my father] had a Larger Purpose, much more than
working in middle management in an not-for-profit bureaucracy to support a
wife and 3 kids and a mortgage in the suburbs. They were fighting the Good
Fight, Together, rather than the mundane getting and spending that
characterized his downwardly-mobile life.<<

I should add that unlike a lot of other parents discussed in this thread,
he never saw much combat in person. So he could describe the Kamikaze
attacks in detail -- and more importanly, was willing to do so --while all
the stuff about the "good war" was much more important to him than it was
to those who actually had to land on beaches, etc. Also, I think that for
him, WW2 was an adventure, an escape from the norms of "civilized" life
(and the social restrictions imposed by the presence of women). It was also
a big break from the Great Depression, in the middle of which he had
graduated from college.

in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html