It's Everybody's War

[Music] it was two years ago that our boys from Jefferson left for training although we hated to see them leave we were a little proud that ours is one of the first national guard companies to be called up there were a hundred and three of our boys in the alphabet so it was quite a chunk out of our small population we had a little parade for them mothers cried a bit but we all thought nothing had happened to them this wasn't our war the chaps wouldn't dare attack us Hitler couldn't cross the Atlantic the boys went to camp and drilled and train with our old equipment and wrote cheerful letters home about how they could whip anybody when they got their guns but after a few months they were a little better trained than the rest of the companies so they were loaded onto transports and sent out to the Philippine Islands 5000 miles across the Pacific Ocean they arrived safely and soon settle down to life in the tropics then came a stab in the back [Music] at home we took the news I suppose like most people in other towns all over America we may have been excited at first but then we became a little more silent and a little more grim because we knew the face of every boy we watched them grow up there wasn't a single family in town that wasn't kin to one of the boys in Company A after the first shock was over we settled down to life more or less as usual mrs. Delaney wrote her John to watch out for malaria because he'd had a touch of it when he was 9 mrs. Ross baked a cake to send a milton but he never got it and we all went to church more often we knew some of our boys would die we didn't know which ones of course but everybody tried not to think about it but the fighting went on just the same and one night last winter came the first telegram from the War Department Elton took it off the wires just before closing time it was for mr. mrs. Todd who lived on a farm just outside town Alton didn't wanted delivered by himself so he stopped by and got the minister to go with him everybody was asleep as they drove up to the Todd's little home [Music] mr. Todd is over 60 and the missus is not much younger with their son they farmed about 50 rich acres of wheat and Richard had gone two nights a week to the army Alton said they look very lonely as they came out from the porch that night to get the news [Music] the minister read the telegram aloud your son Richard Todd killed in action for a day or so everybody resolved to buy more bonds and to work harder but the Todd's lived on the edge of town and we didn't see them very often so we lapse back in our old ways of it we laid off at the factory for a day wasted our tires skipped the week on our buns we felt like most other towns the war was a long way off but the war was to come even closer to us Manila was evacuated and everybody's stuck by their radios we were thinking about our boys so Christmas came and went and everybody tried to have a good time thinking about the next Christmas when the boys would be back their letters all said don't worry mom we're doing all right in this scrimmage and we had our heroes to celebrate too we learned that Steve Johnson one of our young lawyers had led the boys an attack that netted 60 Japs everybody congratulated mrs. Johnson and it was really some to talk about for a few days but then the retreats began we know that things must be getting worse because their letters were getting more cheerful the boys were trying to keep our spirits up there were more telegrams there was one for old man Landry about his grandson Jamie who had been an orphan one for the whites and the Greenberg's and two for the Dunlap's the two dunlap boys had always stuck together the war was certainly getting closer to us now we were in the middle of America we couldn't be bombed but there was a war right here on our front step and it came right in the door on a day that baton failed we knew that most of the boys had escaped a Corregidor but all other news was scarce somebody started a cruel rumor that they'd all been killed though we tried to stop it people picked up scraps of gossip and passed the miners gospel truth for mrs. stone was told three times that her boy was dead but it wasn't true so now she just doesn't believe any rumors only what is official from the government somebody instead of hanging out black crepe put a flag out in the front of their house and soon they were all over town we were worried and proud at the same time but now that fighting is fiercer and more deadly was a terrible blow to dr. Harper that his boy died on the operating table [Music] and killed by a bomb from a jet plane often we got a little desperate in our thinking how could we give them the things they needed we wished we could take the comforts we were enjoying in our homes and carry them out to the tropics and give them to our soldiers as we did when they were kids at the Boy Scout camp down the river the war was here now right here with us in every home in town this was what we had to fear and what we had to fight but we could only work a little harder and give and hope and pray it couldn't get much worse but it did get worse [Music] on the 6th of May and a hell of heat and fever and fighting Corregidor fortress surrendered all the rest of our boys 92 of them were swallowed up in one day they were prisoners of war at the treacherous mercy of the Japs they were missing in action we didn't know how many of them were dead all that night our people wandered around the streets from the post office to the courier down to the depot to get the papers off the train trying to get some news trying to get or give some comfort but very little was to be had this was war war brought right here to our little town forced upon us by an aggressor whom we had helped and tried to trust in the past naturally we couldn't do much of anything for a few days we couldn't work we couldn't even sleep how to remaining doctors had their hands full treating people for shock and for old sicknesses brought back to life by worry and grief but everybody took it bravely mrs. Deering said my boy would be fighting now if he'd had guns and food for his men but odds who would have to farm alone now said it makes us realize how little we've done to help them we all wondered at one time or another how the rest of America felt those who had not lost sons and brothers and fathers but just a battle some of us were disillusioned and some of us were just plain mad we tried to make some plans a committee phoned the Red Cross in New York to see if there was any way to get letters to prisoners of war under the Japanese and the rumour mongers tried to start up again telling harrowing tales and Japanese atrocities to prisoners but they didn't get very far our minds were tidal now so we didn't have time for rumors we knew the enemy and what he was like and then things started to happen our salvage drives took on new meaning to us because our boys could have used the things we'd been wasting we didn't keep for ourselves anything that could help our soldiers and we realized in a way how lucky we were we were a little ahead of the rest of America we had learned the full meaning of this war because we had lived with its pain there was no doubt in our minds now a no complacency no indecision no time to think of our own troubles just time to fight to work overtime a lot of the kids went out to the farms to help harvest the crops hands were important now more important and experience our high school teacher a filling station man and build Daniels organized a Fixit committee they were all handy with tools so they worked after-hours and refrigerators vacuum cleaners automobiles in that way an aeroplane factory got two more mechanics they needed to make the planes we didn't have at bat an a shipyard got a welder who helped launch a ship three days ahead of schedule and there was one more man in America making guns we all either walked him or stayed home and gave up our tires so that our army could roll and our planes could land we didn't realize how many things we could do that we hadn't done before we made over our clothes so our soldiers could keep warm we didn't waste electricity and the smelters a hundred miles away had more power to make steel we sent the Navy six pairs of good binoculars and an Access Raider was sunk in the Atlantic and we didn't spend our money either we put it to work to get our boys back home we weren't gonna face them again after all they'd been through without being able to say with a clear conscience we did everything we could to help you not a little bit or more than we thought we had to but everything all day in every way we could and in spite of annoying grief that was always inside us we began to feel a little elated there was joy in our work because we knew we could face our boys to those who had given arms and legs we could say that we gave not only are sickening luxuries and comforts but our money our thought our skills our work and our sweat it was a different town that watched our second troop march off to war there were almost 200 of them this time some of the mortis husky as others but they could help their pals yes you were a different people we knew that through our efforts these boys that have guns this time better guns than the enemy they'd have food to sustain medicine to keep them well they'd have fast planes tough tanks and fleets of ships to keep them supplied they'd be better than any enemy their weapons would be stronger because all the ingenuity and mechanical skill of our whole great nation would be behind them these boys had never had to surrender because we at home would never let them down we knew that all America would learn what we had learned the hard way that this is everybody's war not war for an outpost here on a naval base there but Worf every foot of American soil every home and field for all our friends for all our CUNY a war without compromise and without port award I must end only one way in freedom for the world and for our little town [Music] [Applause] [Music]