I was born in 1944. I have no idea what my parents were thinking, having me in the midst of WW 2. I guess they were pretty confident, somehow. Dad was on the family farm in Iowa, not gone to the war because of the importance of feeding troops in the war, and people in the USA.  Farmers were important back then. 

His exemption was necessary because Grandpa, his dad, whose farm it still was then, had been severely injured. It was kind of a freak accident, but while kneeling down to milk a cow, the cow raised her hind leg to paw at him, managed to get that leg in behind the strap on his overalls, which likely brought the cow’s leg straight down on his bended one, shattering his leg.

The fact that in a time before antibiotics, there was no infection to cost him his leg. He was just lucky. Mayo Clinic in Rochester patched him together, but that leg ended up knocking him out of business for years, and even when he got better, his leg was a full inch shorter. So dad was necessary on the farm.

There are a lot of things about 1944 that are interesting. Automobile gas was 21 cents a gallon, a new car cost $975.00, and a movie ticket was 32 cents. Even as a teenager 15 years later, I remember that a five-dollar bill would get you out on a date, and leave you change.

Although the names mean nothing to me, the “War Bonds Fight” raised $36 million dollars to help fund the war effort, pitting the heavy-weight boxer Beau Jack against arch-rival Bob Montgomery at Madison Square Garden. Beau Jack won, and they were both drafted into the Army right after the fight. I’ll bet, after going through Army basic training myself,  that they were in better shape than the drill sergeants.

Here are some other miscellaneous values. A new house averaged $3,450.00. Eggs were 55 cents a dozen, milk was 62 cents a gallon. Bread was 9 cents a loaf; a U.S. postage stamp was 3 cents.

Minimum (average) wage was 30 cents an hour; a school teacher made $1,900.00 per year.

The President of the United States was paid $75,000.00 a year; a congressman $10,000.00.

In other interesting bits of trivia, IBM presented its first large scale computer, called the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. (No. There were no transistors around, although they were coming.) The first sunscreen was produced, and the U.S. Forest Service released posters featuring Smokey the Bear.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President, won re-election (we still hyphenated words back then) over Thomas E. Dewey to become the only U.S. President to start a fourth term. He then proposed what we now call Social Security.

Brigadier General A. C. McAuliffe, commander of the U.S. forces defending Bastogne, in a fight that was part of the better-known “Battle of the Bulge”, refused to accept the German demand that he surrender. His reply? One word: “Nuts!” This individual battle produced a later award of the Medal of Honor for the entire unit, not just for an individual, the only time that has happened.

What else? The other day, it occurred to me that, what with being brought up in the aftermath of our great victory in W.W. 2, there was a lot of national pride in our military.  My brother and I soaked in that pride while growing up, and we went to Vietnam to serve our country in the U.S. Army. Neither of us wanted to go; but if pressed, despite some hard feelings about parts of this responsibility–we went. We would both acknowledge that we had no doubts about going. 

We were proud of that responsibility.

And we were proud to serve.

And we are proud today to say that we did.

And we both believe that you’re a little sorry that you didn’t.

It was a great era. Sometimes I wonder if it may well have been the last  one.