The very pleasant homecoming that our present day soldiers receive such as the picture posted above after finishing a tour is nothing like the homecoming World War 2 veterans received, not only in the US but in European Countries. Although parades were thrown the physical and psychological homecoming was not as welcoming. Post World War 2 was a very racist time not only in the US but countries such as Russia. Often times regardless of race obtain certain rights and privileges such as disability pensions or social security was denied to all.
In the US African American soldiers were not welcomed back with hugs instead they were met with a racist America ready to beat, lynch and murder them. W.E.B. Du Bois published a paper “What the Negro Wants” stating that while they were away defending their nation no social equality had happened. Black felt that their citizenship rights were at risk of being removed. If the GI Bill a national bill could not solidify their post combat rights what was to stop the national government to deny their citizenship? The GI bill honored the whites that served by giving them loans for houses and money to go to college. The GI bill added restrictions so that their counterparts, the black veterans could not receive loans or go to colleges. In ” “Enabled Courage”: Race, Disability and Black World War 2 Veterans in Post War America” by Robert F. Jefferson a man named Williams is followed as he describes his story. Many blacks that served were no longer eligible for compensation while they were in the hospital. The way the white culture and government treated the black veterans once they returned was a sad but typical thing for the century.
In Russia the veterans returned to physical and psychological problem. Once they were demobilized they were stuff in trains to head home were alcohol poison was common according to Robert Dale in his paper ” Rats and Resentment: the Demobilization of the Red Army in Post War Leningrad 1945-1950″. The parades that the towns people gave to the returning veterans did not prepare them to find out that their families were living underground, their homes destroyed or people living in their homes. The housing market was destroyed not only because of the raids but because the stock had continued to fall during the war (1941 through 1945). The job market was humiliating to veterans. Aleksei Gonchukou was quoted in Robert Dale’s paper “Rats and Resentment: the Demobilization of the Red Army in Post War Leningrad 1945-1950” that when he went back to Kirov engineering plant to get his job back the deputy director of personal could not offer him anything. Another ex-veteran, a female, wrote on August 1st 1945 that veterans should not be cleaning floors. Russian veterans had another fight to fight after the war, a fight that many wanted to die instead of continue on.
The psychological and physical problems veterans had to deal with after the war all had one central problem, the government did not care enough or have the funds to help. Blacks formed organizations to help them win cases but that often did not help. Social security was denied to blacks in the US as well as amputees in Russia. Russians that applies for social security payments were denied. Russians discrimination was towards amputees such as placing six amputees in a college dorm room to keep down embarrassment. Blacks were thought to be more apt to mental instability because of war and combat.
You bring up a good point because America fought the war as a “liberator” but yet denied their African-American veterans special privileges.