Good Point

To the Editor:

Re "All Quiet on the Home Front, and Some Soldiers Are Asking Why" (Military Memo, July 24):

I was a teenager during World War II. My parents and other adults were deeply involved in war-bond drives, Red Cross blood collections, ration stamps for food and gas, carpooling, Bundles for Britain, letter-writing programs to make sure service members were not forgotten, and war production honors awarded to defense industries ("E for Excellence," the banners read), all part of daily life back then.

Every Monday, we schoolchildren brought our 25 cents to school to buy a stamp, carefully pasting it in a little booklet, awaiting the time when all our quarters earned a war bond.

High school girls, under the auspices of the Red Cross, rolled gauze bandages. My little brother and his Boy Scout troop collected old newspapers. Mothers flattened tin cans to contribute to a drive for tin - we never knew how the newspapers and cans would help the war effort, but we all contributed.

In the front window of every soldier's home there hung a small service flag, with one blue star for each family member in the armed forces.

Some families had flags with two or three stars. Sadly, when a soldier, sailor or marine was lost, a flag with a gold star hung in the window.

And now? "Support Our Troops" decals designed like ribbons on the back of cars.

Nancy Davis
Bloomfield, Conn., July 25, 2005