POSTWAR: A Global History of the Second World War's Legacy

After World War II ended, soldiers returned home to their families. However, not everyone’s return home went as smoothly as they had hoped. Some soldiers returned with psychiatric casualties and the media did not help them with a steady recovery. The media portrayed men in the military as strong and tough because they were masculine, […]

During wartime, it is no surprise that visions of homecoming kept the soldiers morale higher; images of soldiers returning to their family and/or spouse was pushed by American propaganda, and reminders were given from the higher ups to remind soldiers to be

  As if the constant fear and visual atrocities of war were not enough, many World War II veterans arrived home to face another battle against their own society, the same society they fought to preserve and protect. After reading three… Continue Reading →

With much of the conflict drawing to a close around August 1945, millions of veterans began the arduous task of coming home and returning to civilian life. Unfortunately, many veterans not only returned with physical scars, but emotional and mental … Continue reading →

At the conclusion of World War Two an approximate sixteen million veterans returned to American soil. This number represents a very small fraction of the estimated 1.9 billion soldiers who served in WW2 from all nations combined. Naturally the large … Continue reading →

The debate about the place of veterans in society has long raged in American politics and is in the spotlight in the current Presidential Campaign.  The readings for this week focus on the experience of Russian and Australian soldiers after World War II.  After WWII veterans across the world struggled to find their way back … Continue reading “Society’s debt to Veterans”

  Following the Second World War millions of soldiers rushed home in the hopes that their lives would be better following years of fighting and loss on the battlefield. Soldiers returning home to Leningrad in the Soviet Union were greeted with “fanfares, bunting and celebration” but this was  merely an instrument of propaganda created by … Continue reading “Battle on the Home Front”

Post War Blog 2 In Jarvis’s article If He Comes Home Nervous, Jarvis gives us examples of how psychiatric help was just beginning to be…

For many veterans of World War II the trials and tribulations did not simply end with the conclusion of the war. The process of returning to a “life of normalcy” was a long and arduous road for a lot of … Continue reading →

Obviously, the most common theme among the readings is that of displaced persons, most notably the women and children who were largely left alone to essentially sort through the rubble of their lives that were obliterated during the war.  But something that I found particular interesting were the words of a social worker with the…