The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-09-02

lOuSeu py hhAhAbN WH' ASI
 gun refleXlvely, There VIII pc M- coholics, shattered.nerVe cases loafers, buns, drifters, thieves ne'er.do-wells, There will be men who never again will be able to set- lie into homogeneous domesticlty, Lads who never said "darn" will In" terlard their talk with rugged An- Vlo.saxonisms, and mild kids who never tussled at school will knock the ears of the first guy to Tile them,
 Hut these men will be 0 minority group, possibly no larger than similar group under peacetime eon- ditions,
 One naval transport officer who has been bringing men baeK rom overseas for some time now has had n liberal chance to observe their re- actions, He says no man is quite the same when he comes back There is the usual quota of disci- plInary cases, mental cases, combat fatigue cases. Some men are greatly embittered.
 MOST WILL BE PRETTY
 MUCH THE SAME
 But by and large, the guy you sent out is going to be pretty much the same boy you remember, aiter he's had e chance to adjust hitn- self.
 American youngsters, according to this officer, have great talent for regarding even their most fan" tastic experience as rather bizarre dream, It does not stick with them
 "I have talked to kids just after they'd finished killing Japs," the ot" fieer said, land they were totally unable to attach any significance to 1t, It was something apart rom reality--some peculiar game they were playing, Reality, for them, was baseball and hot dogs and footeall games and pretty girls
 sDirt and Ice and blood and JapS yelling American, you dieP was 0 sort of strange interlude .,. Q perIod to be sWeated out until that nebulouS day when everybody couia get up and go home.
 "No matter what the refrigerator and motor company advertisements say Americans are fighting for everything from blueberTy pie to the right to root for the Brooklyn Dodeers-that's 0 lot of hooey' American kids are fighting because they were pulled Into or Jumped into the Army, taught discipline, and are obeying 1t by killing other people.
 "They are fighting because CD they don't want to die, (2) they are hopped up With battle hysteria, tO they don't like 1t where they are nnd want to get the hell out Of there and 20 home as quickly as possible, They do not spend all their time reviling Hitler and Hiro.. hito, deciaiming democracy ana pitying themselves as Q potential lost generation. They cussed John l., Lewis a lot louder than they ever cussed Hitler,
 AT FIRST HE'S DIFFERENT THEN COMES N0RMALCY
 "A strange thing happens to Q re. turned veteran when he first hits the Amrecina beach. For Q while he is nervous, feels uneouth, hampered and strange, He will rage at ie. strletlons and neonYenienees, rune at civilians, and sor little while he will feel like Q hero'
 "He will curse founder and dirtier, and chances are he will drink more heavily and get drunk more rauc- ously, May be he will brag some, and he will undoubtedly embreider his experiences, ,
 "Rut one morning he wakes up, and feels as If he never went away He is bored with telling Of his e%' perienees, tired of being feted, a little sick of whisky and high.lifing. All he wants to do Is settle down to the kind of job he had before,
 "duadalcanai or Salerno or Tar. ava become dim, almost non-eXists ent in his mind. He finds 1t hard to believe that he, eX-PVt John Smith, has ever been away from Dakota. Japs are something played by Chinese actors in war films, and ail Germans are Erich von stroheim once more. He Is bored with the whole business,
 "That's been my experience with the veterans. AS far as can see, our biggest postwar problem Will be in controlling the 10 million bores who will oil want to tell their favor- ite war experiences, until their poor wives and kids feel like taking a stick of stove-wood to the old man. American Iesioi conventions will break up c 0t more furniture than the occasional soldier with c bad mental hangover. or aS least that's my idea"