A Conspicuous Absence: Combat Veterans and America’s Memory of WWII
A Conspicuous Absence: Combat Veterans and America’s Memory of WWII

Summary/Abstract: For almost thirty years following the end of the Second World War, very few first-person narratives of the war by combat veterans were published in America, and, as a result, those veterans’ traumatic experiences failed to inform the national memory of the conflict. A number of cultural influences contributed to these veterans’ silence, including wartime propaganda, Hollywood’s participation in crafting an image of the war that justified America’s large Cold War military, and postwar perceptions of trauma and manhood. Not until Vietnam veterans returned and told their stories did WWII veterans address their experiences publicly in memoir and challenge the national narrative of the conflict.

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