SOME OF US had not always been Americans. Our husbands went from being Hans to Jack, and we went from being Mrs. Mueller to Mrs. Miller. We changed out of slacks and into blue jeans, and already we felt more like Americans. But we were still Europeans, too.
WE SAT ON hay bales in Fuller Lodge and watched short films put out by the War Department that were aired before the featured movies. We wanted to watch Meet Me in St. Louis but we had to suffer through films that asked, Why are we Americans on the march? Pearl Harbor, is that why we are fighting? Or is it because of Britain? France? China? The list continued for at least ten more countries.
THE ANSWER TO the question was: For freedom. They say trouble always comes in threes—look at these faces. And we saw Mussolini, Tojo, and Hitler at podiums, in front of hundreds of people, speaking. They gave up their power, the film said, and they meant non-Americans, citizens of other countries. Some of us had extended families that were still in Germany, France, Norway, Poland, Holland, Greece, Belgium, and elsewhere. Or we were born in the U.S. and the film did not seem strange to us.
WE WERE ITALIANS and we clenched our teeth; or we were Germans and we laughed out loud when we heard, Germans have a natural love of regimentation and harsh discipline; or we were not surprised. But when the film said, German defeat was never acknowledged in the last war and they were ready to back anyone who would obtain victory for them, we wished these silly theatrics would hurry up so we could escape into the stories of Holiday Inn, Slightly Dangerous, or My Sister Eileen. And if we had been brave, if we had wanted to make a scene, to say This is wrong, we would get up from our hay bale and walk out. But where would we go and whose mind would it have changed? We would be back in our drafty living room with only our own suffering—missing the film and worrying that our new friends might think us suspect.