Born in 47 but I arrived in time to see the amputee vets on their creepers and furniture dollies in the streets of Cambridge OH. My dad's best friend went to Europe on the Queen Mary. Had pictures. Total mobilization. And my wife's uncle was on the cover of Stars & Stripes while on Guadalcanal. He was one that didn't talk, but it seems like we grew up on the novels and TV shows of the war in Europe, the war in North Africa, the war in the Boot, the war in the islands, North Atlantic convoys, silent running subs, tin cans, battlewagons, B-29s, you name it. Those of us who weren't even around were dominated by it. 47 was the year that "Mr. Roberts" was the "best play" on Broadway. I still can't get over "Requiem for a Wren," Nevil Shute's novel of operations in southern England at the time of the Dunkirk evac.

jack