Peggy Terry, "hillbilly", and E.B. Sledge, Marine

After reading Stud Terkel’s interview with Peggy Terry, who was a “hillbilly”, and E.B. Sledge, who was a Marine, I was surprised by how the war had impacted Americans views towards Germans and Japanese. I was also shocked by the immorality that Terry and Sledge had witnessed and Americans had taken apart of during World War II. Terry took a job in a factory that produced bombs. She worked on a machine that put the detonators in the explosives. She took the job, because her family had no money during the Great Deppression. While working with the explosives, “It didn’t occur to [them] that [they] were making these shells to kill people.” (190) Terry and her coworkers had endured terrible working conditions and harsh labor. Terry’s mother who also worked at the plant had wanted to take time off when her mom died, but the company told her that if she took time off she would be fired. Terry’s mother then had to quit and later Terry herself decided to as well. Even though the working conditions were awful, the factory “were a big family, and [they] hugged and kissed each other.” (192) The factories’ closeness came from a magnitude of reasons, but mostly because they “were very patriotic and [they] understood that that the Nazis were someone who would have to be stopped.”(193) The factory “[was] awarded the Navy E for excellence.” (192) The factories and later the victory of the war had “People’s expectations, financially, spiritually, were raised.” (194) Terry’s “husband was a paratrooper in the war, in the 101st Airborne Division.” (193) Terry’s husband had later suffered terrible nightmares about how he had shot an innocent woman during the war. E.B. Sledge was a marine during the Second World War. He and his unit “were a bunch of scared kids who had to do a job.” (196) Sledge had fought on the islands in the pacific. Sledge had watched many of his fellow unit fall victim to the Japanese style of warfare, and Sledge knew that “the only thing that kept [him] going was [his] faith in [his] buddies” (198) Sledge’s unit had grown a hatred for the Japanese during the Pacific Theatre. “This hatred toward the Japanese was just a natural feeling that developed elementally.” (199) Men would steal dead Japanese soldiers’ gold teeth, and shoot off additional body parts after killing the Japanese. Sledge was disgusted by his unit’s immoral actions, and when the war was over was glad to return home. These stories bring up many questions. The first question is why was World War II such an immoral war? The second question is why did the Americans sacrifice their morals during time of war and treat the Japanese so poorly? These stories remind me of slavery and the Civil Rights movement. The Americans treatment towards African Americans in America was similar to how the Americans treated the Japanese during World War II. The Americans had treated the Japanese Americans as if they had no human rights, which was also how the Americans had treated the African Americans since the beginning of slavery. The immorality of the Americans during World War II was just like the immorality that the Americans had during the Civil War. These stories also remind me of my grandfather, who had helped develop the atomic bomb during World War II. He, just like Terry, had not thought about how the bomb was going to kill many Japanese people, but he was very patriotic and knew that the war had to be ended, which was why my Grandfather had worked long hours trying to develop such a bomb.