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I want to take you boyz back in time to 1930. It was a world that no one born after 1945 can even conceive of.

It was a time of deep despair in America. It was in the throws of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many people thought capitalism has failed and Communism was the wave of the future. Stalin and the USSR was lookin pretty dam good to many people. Unemployment was running over 10% nationally and in many cities it was 25% or greater. There was no social security, unemployment insurance or social welfare system of any kind. The banks became insolvent and many of them failed. There literarily was no money, no jobs, no hope. The government under President Hoover didn't even know how bad the situation was, there was no Federal spending to stimulate the economy. And it dragged on unabated for 3 years.

In 1932 FDR was elected President. He was the hope of the nation. The first thing he did was create NRA..National Relief Act, Social Security (1935) and the WPA Works Progress Adm. He opened the government coffers and started spending money to get things moving again. He paid artists to paint, he created the TVA and got Boulder Dam started. All to give people some jobs and hope. He also closed all the banks and took the USA off the Gold Standard. things got better but the Depression dragged on for a full decade. The hope that FDR embodied was why so many people of that era fondly remember him, he represented hope, the ability to get things moving again.

To have a High School Diploma meant something in those days and a college degree was your ticket to success. Many kids had to drop out of school around the 8th grade and go to work to help support the family. If you want a flavor of the time just watch the movie Grapes of Wrath (1940) with Henry Fonda it deals with the failure of small family farms and the migration west to California the promised land in the 1930's. Crop prices had plummeted and the farms failed that is why there are farmers paid today not to grow crops, to help support prices. The Oklahoma Dust Bowl was only part of the story. California even had armed guards at the CA border to stop the American farmers from entering the state.

During the 30s America was still an isolationist nation that was opposed to getting involved in world affairs and as such had a small military service. FDR by the late 1930s was becoming increasingly aware of the threat that Fascism posed to the USA. Yet he could not openly express those concerns. During the 1940 election he even campaigned on a platform of not getting the US involved in European affairs. In 1940 the US passed the Selective Service Act and started drafting its' boys in the likely eventuality of war coming to the US FDR weaved and dodged and help support the Brits in their stand against Hitler, with schemes like Lend Lease. We got a lease on the Virgin Islands for a 100 years. We gave Britain 50 obsolete WW1 era Destroyers etc. In September 1941 the USA was guarding the Convoys destined for Britain 1/2 way across the Atlantic,(the Brit Navy was stretched so thin) and one of our Destroyers was sunk by a German U Boat. So the US was in a de facto war with Germany already. At this time you have to be cognizant that Hitler was the Master of Europe taking France and defeating the Brit Army in 6 weeks. Was knocking on the door of Cairo in Egypt, had virtually knocked Russia out and was at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad. Even Stalin in December of 41 thought he was finished.

Pearl Harbor came as a surprise to FDR and the nation, all though an attack was thought to be imminent. probably in the Philippines. within 6 months Japan had defeated the Brits in Malaya and taken Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, South East Asia (French In-do China), wake Island and Guam, sank the Brit Battle Ships Prince of Wales and Repulse, was knocking on the door of India and Australia, and was deep into China (Starting in the early 30s). It was a grim do or die time. Everybody had to pull together or go down, America and the free worlds back was to the wall. There was NO tomorrow, no discussion everybody went to work to win the war. There was unity of purpose.

Within a week of Pearl Harbor both FDR and Churchill realized that with the US industrial might harnessed to fight Fascism, it would be eventually defeated. WW2 virtually ended the Great Depression by putting everybody back to work 24/7. If you worked on the home front you got rich with OT. There was nothing to spend your money on, everything was rationed, tires, gas, meat, sugar, flour everything. You had Ration Stamps to buy things. New car production stopped until late 1945. Before WW2 there was virtually no market for used cars, during the war it was the only way to get a car. Women took the jobs in the factories that were left behind by the boys off fighting the war. Rosie the Riveter became famous. There were scrap metal drives, and US Savings Bond Drives, all with the purpose of winning the war.

The generation that grew up during this time never really stopped living it, it scarred them. They worked hard, saved their money, fought communism (another form of Totalitarianism they were told), indulged their children with everything they never had and stoical carried on till they left the stage of life. There was no use in complaining it wouldn't have gotten you anywhere in their time, except a rap across the mouth from pops. They simply did what they had to do to survie, they met the challenge of life in their time.