One sniper bullet i would be shaking in fear, i guess i finally got another tank, and we had to get another crew because of the four tanks crewmen. Three were killed five of us survive survived we had to get another tank crew, and it was about two weeks. Massive count ererattack. We all got out of that one safely. Not safely, i got burned and hit on the arm with a piece of shrapn shrapnel. Another question from the audience . Another question. Thank you all for attending, thank you especially to our veteran veterans. American history tv in prime time continues in a moment. Coming up, the wives and children of soldiers discuss their memories of world war ii including pearl harbor, dday and president roosevelts death thats followed on the invasion of sicily and the Italian Campaign to the liberation of europe. Cspans latest book, sundays at eight. A collection of stories from some of the most influential people over the last 25 years i decided to take it, because whether its an illusion or not, i dont think it is. It helped my concentration, it stopped me being board and other people being worried to some extent. It would keep me awake, and make the evening go on longer. If i was asked would i do it again the answers probably yes, i would have quit earlier. It sounds irresponsible if i say, i would do that all again to you. It would be hypocritical to say yes, i would never have touched the stuff if i knew. I did know, everyone knew. Many of the problems that we saw at the end begin at the beginning. I spoke already about the attempt to control all institutions and all parts of the economy and social life. One of the problems is when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create opposition and dissidents. If you tell all artists you have to paint the same way, one artist says, i dont want to paint that way, you have just made him a political incident. If you want to subsidize housing, and we talk about it, and the populous agrees its something we should subsidize, put it on the balance sheet. Make it clear, and make everyone aware of how much its costing when you deliver it through these third Party Enterprises fannie mae and freddie mac, executives who can extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a very good way of subsidizing homeownership. A few of the 41 engaging stories of cspan sunday at 8 00, now available in your Favorite Book seller. Our coverage of the Dwight D Eisenhower dday continues now. Soldiers, wives and children who grew up in the 1940s, talk about writing letters to enlisted men abroad. How schools engaged in the war and they have memories of merle harbor and dday. June marked the 70th occupation of dday and france. This is 40 minutes. In his book, the Second World War, john keegan writes, the Second World War is the largest single event in Human History fought across six of the worlds seven continents in all its oceans. Killed 50 human beings, left hundreds of others wounded in mind and body and materially devastated the heartland this event affected abilene as well as communities around the world and where our panelists were during the war. Ill begin our introductions with our abilene resident. My immediate right marge olson and marge spent the war, part of the war in texas and oklahoma as she followed her husband from post to post, and including time in the defense plant in amarillo texas that i know well talk about next on our panel, doris snyder. Not rosie the riveter, but similar type war work doris is also the mother of william snyder, we made this panel into a real Family Affair as youll see in a moment bob reeves spent the years as a boy in oklahoma, he studied journalism. Bob while he was there met priscilla and they married in 19 1955. The blessed event also known as my birth occurred four years later. Here we are today and please welcome our panelist. Id like to start by asking about a key date in history, december 7th, 1941. Perhaps starting with you, doris and proceeding down the panel. Where were you on that day, what were you doing . What was your reaction to the news. What was the first noticeable change in your life. I was working at Firestone Tire and rubber company. And that day changed my life a lot, because my husband enlisted in the marine corps that very day, he felt it was the thing to do, even without asking me. But i guess it was the right thing for him to do no disrespect to eisenhower, he didnt want to be in the army. He thought he could get what he wanted if he enlisted ahead of time, he enlisted in the marine corps and believe it or not, he enlisted in cleveland, ohio and they never let him return home. They sent him directly to san diego that very minute and he didnt have a toothbrush, he didnt get to say goodbye to his parents, nothing, or to me of course, we werent married at the time, we were engage d thats what happened to me on pearl harbor day, i was working at firestone. I wasnt exactly rosie the riveter i was a firestone in order to accommodate us, they built huts on the factory grounds. I wasnt in the main plant, i was down in this hut, and in the bottom of the hut they were building wings, just wings for the curtis plains in the war, and i was working up on the second floor no air conditioning. Believe me, it was warm, but we knew we had a job to do, so we did it. A man was sent down from new york to train me, to operate this huge typewriter keyboard. It was about four feet long. It paid the bills and ordered the materials we needed to build the wings all on this machine it made the checks and kept the accounts right on this machine. I guess it was the nearest thing we had to a computer back in those days and that was my pearl harbor day in a nutshell, i guess. Marge, how about you . I was a new bride, i had been married three months and we were living right here in abilene supposed to be happily ever after. I remember that day the radio was on, and i remember hearing president roosevelt tell us about pearl harbor and i knew then it was going to change my life. Actually, within just a few short months, my husband did leave for the service, and i became not only a war bride, but eventually i did become rosie the riveter for a short time in amarillo texas, but it definitely changed our lives. Mr. And mrs. Reeves your experience was a little different at the time the war broke out. What are your memories . For me, it probably took away since my birthday was the next day, i probably didnt appreciate all that attention to pearl harbor. But it impacted us, because i have three older brothers, so it was something that we were very aware of the significance of it was a big deal. I was playing in the flower bed in the front yard, digging, mother came out and told me that the japanese had attacked and it sort of registered as a big thing, but got even bigger because dad was preparing a christmas lighting decoration for our house. He ordered it to become a v for victory. He asked me whether the morse code was three dots and a dash or three dashes and a dot. I told him it was three dots and a dash. We won second prize in the city. I began as a war profit ear. Your three dots and a dash reminds me of something i didnt learn until recently. During the war, the bbc used the opening refrain of beethovens fifth. Theyre using the german composer to signify victory in europe. Something that did change between 1940 and 1945 women in the workforce increased by 50 . Nearly half of all american women took on some sort of job in world war ii. It wasnt just defense work. Women moved into all types of new fields because of a male labor shortage, and amarillo newspaper story was amazed that women were now driving taxis, checking and stocking groceryie selling mens clothes. Even Management Department stores and fixing flat tires. It was a revolution in the type of work that women did. Marge, well start back with you if you want to tell us more about the war work you did in amarillo where this article was written. Thats where i became rosie the riveter, it was the first place we moved after basic training in wichita falls. The first thing i had to do was get a job. I worked for a warehouse and learned they were hiring war brides, especially wanted war brides because they figured theyd be better workers for the defense plant something i never dreamed id ever do. I climbed an eight foot ladder with a blow torch in one hand and a roll of solder in the other hand and welded a group of small pipes together to make one large pipe for helium and that was one of my experiences. It shocks me today to think i did it. I know you follow ed mr. Johnson around doing some jobs that men would have had during peace time . It was in the warehouse, i had to push a grocery cart around. And fill orders. And you had to learn in a short time where everything was on the shelves. It was so many miss lane jous things and i had to devise some way of knowing where i was in the hallways, i did that then in oklahoma city, i didnt know that men were doing it, but i learned to do a teleprompter and worked for Western Union running several Branch Offices throughout the city. The special one that comes to mind that might have been a little bit on the dangerous side was i worked at the stock yards and i had to take a commuter train to the stock yards and check in before and after at the main office, handle quite a bit of money, here i was, 21, 22. Getting on that commuter about 5 00 in the evening with my bag of money. Riding the commuter train into the main office. Never dreamed it could have been dangerous, im not sure it was all that dangerous back there, but i sure wouldnt try it now. You told us about your work with that interesting early computer. What other jobs did you have . That was about it. Until my husband or my fiancee came back, yes. Yes. Then we were stationed at camp lejeune North Carolina because he got to come home early in South Pacific because he had been in two of the worst battles. He 4gaudal canal. They were the first to deploy into the water in japan. They needed r r. Your parents experience would have been different since both fathers were not of military age, how did the war change their work and did your mothers take on work during the war they would not have authorized. I had two younger sisters, she was a stay at home mom, my dad was a builder. And because we had moved from west virginia, when i was little to florida, to orlando, that was before there was any speaking mice or princesses in florida. There was nothing there but orange groves and sand. My dad built a house for us there, and because he enjoyed building the house, that later became his lifetime work, my dad. So when we moved to ohio, we had some experiences in florida and moved to texas. Dad heard there was so much work in ohio, because we had four rubber plants there at the time. Akron was known as the rubber capitol at the time. There was a lot of building there. He built up the whole city of firestone park. He built all the homes there, and it became his life work then, and we did well. We had three regular meals a day, although we had been raised through the depression and i dont remember ever being hungry. Everybody was kind of in the same boat. So we didnt know we were privileged and didnt have a lot of things. We felt privileged when we got an orange for christmas. Not all the technology they have today. Yes. In terms of your homes in oklahoma, and your fathers work, and the work your mother may have taken on in the war. My dad worked for the electric company, they were very shorthanded. Which meant they worked a lot of extra hours, including no vacations for a long period. We also farm ed. In the time he had working for the electric company, we worked for a farm. And a small air force base was built near our hometown, so he converted our Double Garage into an apartment that we rented to a pilot. Which meant a great deal to me because we were around him, i soaked up all the knowledge i could. War was a period of work. We also had a large garden as almost everyone did. Mom spent a lot of time on that. She did not workout side the home. There were five of us, and im the baby. Which i like to tell them all the time, of course. But my eldest brother did go into the service and my sisters husband and dads brother, dad tried to, they told him he was more valuable on the home front he was also in the construction business. We had gardens and scrap iron. I remember we had no bubble gum. My mother worked fearless ly an she was a volunteer in many aspects of the home front and she started a uso center in the little town we lived. About 3,000 population, and there was an army camp 40 miles south of us in texas. Mother decided the boys, the soldiers, mostly boys were coming up on the train and looking for some place when they had free time to get away from camp. She decided they have to have a good place. Cant just be bars and everything. She talked to a lady who owned a lot of property and was a recluse in our little town. She talked her into letting us use a building downtown and she managed to talk everybody into furnishing doughnuts and coffee and furniture and a piano and girls probably to help and mothers to and magazines and books and whatever it took. That became my performance area because i got to play the piano and i could play home on the range with two fingers. I knew i must be glamorous and important to the war effort. Well, the red cross and uso you bring up are synonymous with rationing and war bond drives, the victory gardens. What sort of memories do those activities raise of any wartime. Shortage as you said, with bubble gum, i know children had trouble getting tires with their bicycles. One of my most important moments was a result of that. If we brought a pound of copper or brass to school we got a free movie ticket. I walked home in the fog and i was pursued by that stupid thing every inch of the way and it was all because of the war. Thats got to be hard to top. Were here to commemorate the 70th anniversary of dday what are your dday memories, how did you hear . Was it one of hope . Was it the light at the end of the tunnel after all these years, anything come to mind . Of course i was working at firestone on that day, and we had all heard at firestone that dday was happening and all the churches were open what i planned to do on my way home from work, i stopped at the church and prayed for my husband i remember that i at the time had taken my baby daughter and my husband was overseas and i was living on a farm with his folks and my sister lived in centralia about 25 miles away, she had three children and her husband was serving in the navy i was so excited that day, that i packed up my baby daughter with clothes and the play pen that was her dad. I drove to centralia, picked up my sister and we started out in the wee hours of the morning. We were going to celebrate some place. The first thing we had was a flat tire here we were we had to unpack kids and everything, it was still dark and we happened to be near a small town and so we went to the filling station and behind the filling station was the house and we knocked them on the door and woke them up. The man was so happy when we told him it was dday, he came out and took care of our tire, otherwise, i dont know how long we would have been stranded. How about meanwhile in oklahoma . It took a while for the word to get there the key dates i remember were Jimmy Doolittles raid. I was 12 when roosevelt died, he was the only president we had had during my lifetime. That was really one of the big moments of the war, i can remember dday and being fascinated by it, it wasnt one of those, do you remember what you were doing when kinds of days in my life. Sort of the same for me, the day that roosevelt died was, i do remember april 12, 1945, we also had a tornado that about took most of the little town that i lived in away. So that probably took a little more significance to us. I wont i dont think i want to tell that. Well talk later. Another question, since you two were both still in school, in grade school. Was there a daily effect with the war, was it constantly on peoples minds . Im sure they helped siblings and parents involved in the war . How big of a presence was the war . We learned a lot of geography because of the war and learned about other countries they sold stamps for victory bonds at school. You could buy one for a dime or a quarter. We had scrap drives through the school. One of the popular pastimes was for kids to bring war trophies that their brothers or fathers sent to them, german helmets, japanese helmets and thinking of todays life, rifles, weapons showed up in grade school. These were great moments and we passed them around for show and te tell. I had letters, of course, i wrote to the brother and i wrote to they wrote to me, and i still have some of those. So that was something that was very appreciated. Rereading them now, it takes you back. I mean, youre just transported back when you read those letters and they loved everything we sent. Everybody was a part you know, that war touched everybody. Everybody you knew. We worked together to get the thoughts together as best we could, you shared one item that i thought was interesting, it was a red cross chapter in a very small town in oklahoma raising money for the war effort and collecting items to help the allies, what struck me is that its dated march 1941. These small communities in southeastern oklahoma were already involved on the side of the allies to some extent well before pearl harbor which really came as kind of a surprise to e me. In the time we have left to go full circle, we keep mentioning these dates. Victory day or perhaps victory over japan day more meaningful depending upon which area your Family Member was in. Well, both e day and vjday prompted parades down main stre street. Everyone who had a car was driving and honking, it was a celebration in the middle of the country and extremely well receive received. As the folk singer said, the peace hit harder than the war ever did. We have some time for questions and answers of our panelists, but also just for you to be able to share your memories of the war as well. And linda will pass the microphone. Please wait until we get the microphone, so the cameras will be able to pick up the audio. During that time, in my studies at school, we talked to a lot of wives who lost their husbands and the current wars. What did the men and women do when friends of theirs or a neighbor got news that they actually lost a husband . I lost Three Friends in the war one his ship was bombed and split in half and he was asleep on the bottom deck and the other one jerrys plane was bombed. They were all killed on the plane. And then ben worked at firestone with me and i always felt so bad he enlisted because he was all that his mother had. He didnt he had no reason to enlist, he wouldnt have had to, but he did anyway. And he was all she had and he didnt come home. I guess i was one of the lucky ones. My fiancee came home and we got to be married and we had three children. Of course, theres one. Another question for the panel . This question is for mrs. Olson and mrs. Snyder. I heard the toughest job is an army wife. How do you feel about that . Do you feel that . Or a marine wife. When he got home, we were married in three weeks after he got home. The war was still going on, he got to come home because of what he had been through, so thats why we were sent to camp leje e lejeune. We lived there on base for almost a year almost two years i think, we lived on base and it was one of the most fun times of my life. I could walk to the ocean, the grocery store, even though we lived in a what today they call a travel trailer. Thats what all the married marines lived in. I had to learn to cook on a camp stove, i had to pump up a little tank on the front of it. I had some wonderful times. I had marine friends and families, the whole base was family mostly and we had some lifelong friends we made there. Actually, it was a nice experience i think today, North Carolina is my favorite state. My experience was not the worst time of all, that for years after my husband died in 1989 i had a recurrent dream, that i was walking down a country lane to a mailbox, i would get there, and there would be no letters. This dream continued through the last 10 years, actually, thats kind of what had happened, there were days to me the lifeline was communication, and communication when our husbands were in the army were by letter and no telephones, no ipads, no cell phones, no pictures, nothing. And these letters at least coming from okinawa would come, maybe you would go down to the mailbox for two or three days in a row or maybe five days and there would be no letters. Maybe the next day there would be one. And when he was sent overseas, he didnt know where he was headed. I didnt know where he was head ed because they zigzagged across the pacific because of the japanese, the subs. It took about six weeks he had left the first part of june and didnt get into okinawa until the last of july. And then it was another six weeks before i heard from him so to me, communication was the hardest part. And those were long, long months. Of course, i had a baby girl and i was busy, but still, it was hard, very hard. And i know thats why i continued to have a dream that referred to that time in my life. Were your letters all cut up . Mine were so censored it was usually just dear doris or a salutation at the end. It was so chopped up. And i cant understand why the sensors had to be so rough. My husband wasnt going to tell where he was to the enemy. Why did they chop them up like that . I think they enjoyed it . No, mine werent cut up. They werent . But my husband never wrote very much about what was going on except the discomfort of the rain and mud he was living in in okinawa. But after he was dead, probably about at least 10 years i was going through his things and the first part of the diary showed nothing so i was ready to toss it, and flipping back through, i came to the middle of the diary, he had started it when he left, not in the front of the diary. And in this diary i learned about the snipers, the booby trap he barely escaped. The striking of his tent of his homesickness, of the 170 mile an hour typhoon and all those things that he didnt write, because he didnt want me to be upset. Mrs. Reeves . You mentioned that the war was something that everyone felt, was involved in. And being a spouse from the war today where its one or two of the population that feels the cost of the last war, do you have any suggestions on how to help civilians understand that theres still that cost . Actually, a group of ladies at our church who have this kind of thing i think keeps it foremost in your mind. We have made greeting cards to send to the military so that they would have cards to send home to people and it is something that when you work on it and talk about it you become very aware that these things are still going on, there are Lonely People out there and it gets, it also encourages them beyond i know the email and all that stuff, the letters you have in your hand that i still have from my brothers in the 40s mean a lot. And i think generally, you know, talking about it, and encouraging that kind of involvement, because it does it means a tremendous amount. And it did it was mentioned early, you know, when you live in a little town, you do lose people that you know very well. And i think everybody kind of huddles together, you know, you try to support each other. To s each other and youre aware of everything thats going on in the lives, so its you have to put yourself there. Another question . I want to say that i was in the army and when it was mail time, it was a big deal. I think that the email and all that stuff is detrimental to the military because just think of all the times that you could write a letter and those soldiers would get that letter and be r