"My Father Died Twice": Family History, Memory, and the Life of a WWII Veteran

ABSTRACT

In popular culture the generation that lived through the Great Depression and World War II is often mythologized. THE PASSING OF A MYTHOLOGIZED GENERATION According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), just 325,574 of more than 16 million World War II veterans remained alive in 2020, before Covid-19 dramatically thinned their ranks. The passing of this generation exacerbates the romanticism attached to those who endured both the Great Depression and world war. [...]films were regularly recycled on television, where my father viewed them numerous times.1 In 1998, he made a rare trip to the cinema to see Saving Private Ryan, although he had been cautioned not to go as he was suffering from heart disease.