Hi All,
Ever since I read Tom Brokaw's wonderful book The Greatest Generation which details the sacrifices of military men (mostly), I have felt that a book needed to be written about the people on the homefront and what they did to keep the war machine moving. I know some books have been published, but none had the stories that my parents told--some funny, some poignant. What began as a short story about Mom and her nursing school buddies, and a few stories about Dad is now over 100 pages and still growing.
This is because I have become good friends with Aggie, one of Mom's best friends during nursing school. This wonderful, feisty woman, who turned 90 in May, joined the Army-Air Force after graduating from nursing school and served as a flight nurse in the Pacific. Her humility makes it difficult to discover many stories through her, even though she is as "sharp as a tack." Therefore, I have done quite a lot of research with the help of Air Force archivists and learned so much about the heroic actions of WW II flight nurses. Unfortunately, there is little written for the common citizen about the action of WW II flight nurses, and their experiences are just beginning to be honored. Anyway, what began as a short story for family to honor my parents has become a much bigger project, and will include other people of the WW II era and their stories.
For her birthday last month, I gave Aggie a copy of what I have written thus far, and she was delighted and said, "I almost wet my pants remembering antics we pulled as student nurses.
If you are interested in WW II and especially know anything about flight nurses during WW II, I would love your input. If you have homefront stories about people who deserve to be honored, this is a great place to begin to honor them.
Hope we make lots of friends who are also interested in the era of "the greatest generation."
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