An excerpt from
Letters from the Front, 1898-1945
Voices of the Wisconsin Past
Edited by Michael E. Stevens
"The lessons to be learned from war are so simple"
Captain Roy F. Bergengren, Jr.
Courtesy of Rosemary Bergengren
WHi(X3)47091 After World War I, Americans had vowed that they would never be drawn into a global conflict again, trumpeting the virtues of "splendid isolationism" and putting faith in documents like the Kellogg-Briand pact, which was supposed to eliminate war forever. Yet less than twenty-five years later, millions of Americans fought World War II, which was longer and costlier (in terms of both money and lives) than the previous conflict. Throughout the war, many men and women in the service reflected on why it was necessary that they fight. Signe Skott Copper recalled that "most Americans really thought that World War II was a worthy cause, that we had to get involved. . . . We felt it was right, it was right we should be doing this."
Americans, confident of their eventual triumph, possessed great optimism about the world of the future and about their ability to effect positive change in other areas of society. This sense of American accomplishment and confident outlook can be seen in the following letters (excerpted online) reflecting on the war:
Letter from Peter G. Pappas to Myrtle Trowbridge.
Letters from Roy F. Bergengren, Jr. to Don Anderson.
The Office of School Services has created a supplemental Teacher's Companion to Letters from the Front, 1898-1945, containing lesson plans and a bibliography.
The Voices of the Wisconsin Past series continues with Remembering the Holocaust, also edited by Michael E. Stevens (1997).
Letters from the Front, 1898-1945
Edited by Michael E. Stevens
1992 187 pp 45 b/w photographs 6" x 9"
ISBN 0-87020-268-5 Paperback $12.95
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