SINCE THE DRAFT age had been extended in 1941 and our husbands were no longer working at the university, we worried they might have to leave us to fight in the war. But we were told there was no way our husbands would ever have to go to war since they were working on a war project. Sometimes the draft letter did come, and our husbands left for San Francisco, and we were certain they would be called to the Pacific theater, or we had a feeling it would all be okay.
IF OUR HUSBANDS were drafted, or our brothers, we hated the term theater to describe parts of a war. If we did not have anyone in battle, or if we had generations of men in our families who had been in battle, we loved the term theater, and we thought it conjured both the drama and the artifice.
WE HEARD NEWS that the U.S. invaded the Pacific islands of Saipan, Guam, and Tinian, but thankfully, all of our husbands who were drafted returned, because they were working on a war project already, and they did not leave for the Pacific. But they were here, on the Hill, in the Tech Area, fighting anyway.