My Family in WWII

When first given this assignment I assumed that I had no connection at all to WWII. I thought to myself there is no way my boring family has any interesting history at all. Turns out for once I was wrong. (sarcasm) I called my grandmother Marjorie Siemon, now known as Mama Midge. My family didn't follow the norms of many other families of this time. When I asked my grandmother why her fiancee and brother went to war she simply said, "To get the bad guys." It seemed to me that they were not very informed and that they simply wanted to spill Japanese blood to get revenge for Pearl Harbor. My grandmother's fiancee, my grandfather to be, enlisted as a fighter pilot. He joined the Thunderbirds for one sole reason, they were the only fighter plane that could drop bombs. (This information may be incorrect my grandmother is old and doesn't quite remember all the details.) Mama Midge moved from Chicago, Illinois to California to wait for her fiancee to return home. It turns out that he had already been shot down before she had even left for California. Mama Midge dropped out of college to live in California for her lover. The one thing that she most vividly remembered was the dances designed for the soldiers. She remembers going to them in Chicago and having a great time. I am also good friends with her brother who enlisted. His name is E.G. "Bud" Siemon. Bud tried to enlist at age 14, however his parents would not sign his enlistment papers and forced him to graduate high school. At 17 he enlisted in the Navy Airforce. He trained a few weeks until he was told that the Navy Airforce had too many pilots and that they did not need his services. Then he joined the Army Airforce to try to fulfill his dream of flying for his country. The Army Airforce required all of their pilots to have one year of college so Bud went off to school. After he finished his year of schooling he tried once again to become a pilot. When he returned to the Army Airforce they had shut down their doors to new pilots and gave their pilots in training three choices: discharge, to join the infantry, or to join the ground crew. He decided to discharge and was never able to fight the Japanese. He told me that the reason he enlisted was not because of Hitler, but because of his hatred of the Japanese. After Pearl Harbor he always wanted to get back at the Japanese. He told me that he can vividly remember V-J Day and the celebrations that went on when the war in the Pacific was finally over. I am glad that I didn't assume that I was not connected to WWII because now I feel connected to my past and I feel apart of American history.