16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching, Aching and Understanding, June 1, 2005
This review is from: Our Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation (Hardcover)
America's young men and women who grew up quickly during the 1940s became known as the Greatest Generation for their willingness to sacrifice for their country and families. Many were born into immigrant households; their parents came to this country for myriad reasons, whether to escape religious or political persecution or simply to make a better economic life.
These "children" answered the call to duty, often at a terrible price. Even those who were fortunate enough to return from the battlefields did so as damaged goods, carrying scars both physical and psychic from their ordeals, problems that did not always end when they reached the safety of their home shores.
Tom Mathews was a son of one of these veterans. He relates his awkward experiences, and those of his contemporaries, in OUR FATHERS' WAR: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation.
The long-time Newsweek writer and editor reports on ten families for which those aforementioned scars never completely faded. The fathers returned home, still young men, to their own children born in their absence. Their need to feel control, after years when much was out of their control, impacted on these children. They were demanding, with little patience for what they perceived as weakness or cowardice in their progeny.
Grace under fire did not come easily to the older generation of Mathews's work. Despite accomplishing extraordinary things, many cursed themselves for self-imposed failures to act like Audie Murphy, one of WWII's most legendary figures.
Mathews writes of Murphy's own account of the action that won him the Congressional Medal of Honor, in which the All-American hero admitted to being scared.
"Manically, I hauled down the Oxford English Dictionary's giant Volume C. First I looked up courage: 'that quality of mind which shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking.'
'I was scared' [Murphy had written].
"Then I checked out coward: 'one who displays ignoble fear or want of courage in the face of danger.'
'I was scared' [Murphy had written].
"What was this? Either Audie Murphy was yellow or the accepted definition was full of s---. You didn't have to be a genius to cipher it out.... Without fear there could be no courage."
The theme of fear under wartime conditions, and the determination not to show such weakness back home, is a main component of each chapter.
Many veterans refused to talk about their experiences, perhaps believing that if you weren't there, there was no way you could understand. They passed their physic scars on to their children who grew up confused, at once desirous of the love and approval of their fathers, but at the same time repelled by the inexplicable hostility --- even physical abuse --- they received. In some cases the need for approval manifested itself when it was the younger generation's turn to fight in Vietnam, some of the sons acting heroically if recklessly, as if that would finally win their old man over.
As the book concludes with Mathews's reconciliation with his own father, readers might come to think that this book was a purgative for the author's troubled soul. He finds comfort in others like him (and it's amazing how many others there are).
A truly touching story, told with an aching longing for acceptance, understanding and love, OUR FATHERS' WAR is one that could carry over to present-day fathers and sons stuck in the quagmire of mis- or incommunications.
--- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Post-war Stories, July 18, 2005
This review is from: Our Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation (Hardcover)
The effects of war on those who fight and on their families is complicated. Tom Mathews' father fought in World War II and the son's relationship to his father after the war is the foundation for this book, OUR FATHERS' WAR.
Mathews' own memories of growing up and his efforts, as an adult, to understand his father are widened by accounts of other sons whose fathers were also veterans of the Second World War, a cohort now known as "the greatest generation." The father/son dynamics in this book are as moving as they are difficult. Though the narrative follows what happened after that particular war, it could hardly be more timely and significant than it is today as we try to understand new generation of men and women now returning from war and their children.
Mathews' book is profound and valuable.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Our Fathers War, August 29, 2005
This review is from: Our Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation (Hardcover)
Wow - what a book!
If I had read such a book 45 years ago,I would have known that my family wans't the only "lunatic bin" on Long Island. Then to see the lunacy continue from "My Father's War" through my war, gave me insight how to break the cycle for my grandson.
I sent a copy to my younger brother and he too saw clearly we were not alone. A book like this could bring financial ruin to the revenue stream of L.I. shrinks.
I really enjoyed it and learned so very much from it about why my father was the way he was and that the problem wasn't me.
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