The average man was 26 years old.
He stood 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 144 pounds.
He wore size 9 shoes and had a high school diploma.
He had many names.
Soldier,
Sailor,
Airman,
Flyboy,
Leatherneck.
Women went too.
They were called Nurse,
Whack,
Wave,
Spar,
and Lady Marine.
They flew and typed,
drove locomotives and fixed motors.
They did things women had never done before.
All of them were Americans.
Their most common name was GI. And when their country asked,
they answered the call.
They came from everywhere.
The Bronx,
Harlem,
a reservation in the Black
Hills,
Tuskegee, Alabama,
Detroit, Michigan,
Pueblo, Colorado,
Pretty Prairie, Kansas,
Battle Creek, Michigan,
Long Beach, California.
Most had never been on a ship or an airplane.
Never traveled more than 100 miles from home.
Many had only known one president,
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt.
They left their school books,
their farms,
their offices,
their sawmills,
fishing boats, and dish washing jobs.
They said goodbye to their families and loved ones.
They went to war.
They didn't conquer.
They liberated.
They were professionals,
volunteers,
amateurs and draftees.
They were citizen soldiers.
They
fought in places most had never heard of.
Guadalcanal, Midway, Ploesti, Anzio,
Iwo Jima,
Bastogne,
and innumerable others.
They were hit by artillery,
mortars, machine gun fire,
or simply a stray bullet.
Their vessel was torpedoed, hit by a kamikaze.
Their plane struck by flak.
They were fighters.
They were afflicted with malaria,
dysentery,
or just had bad luck.
Of the over 16 million who went,
400,000 never returned.
They didn't conquer.
They liberated.
They defeated oppression and slavery.
Their loss will never be filled.
Their accomplishments never forgotten.
They are the greatest generation.
They are the fallen.
So.