Monday, May 30th remembers all who have died serving in the American Armed Forces. Originally known as Decoration Day, the holiday began after the Civil War to honor and decorate the graves of Union & Confederate soldiers. It didn’t gain a strong following until after WWII and wasn’t renamed Memorial Day until 1967.
We Once Had Wings opens in 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War. Jimmy came back for our main character Joy, but many he had served with did not recross the Atlantic. Their memory would forever haunt him.
“The war’s ended and the men have marched home. How unaware we were, waiting in our Sunday dresses, that they’d forever be soldiers, no longer the smiling boys with combed waves and rolled jeans we’d known. Something now preyed upon them in the darkness; they bounced their legs, waiting to run.
The shrill voices of their blood-splattered officers haunted them. “Men! Serve your country, get a job, get married . . . get laid!”
Our GI Joes yelled, “Yes, sir!” and threw themselves at their first loves, the first girls they saw, or whoever first fell against the pinup girl tattooed on their sinewy arms.”