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Excerpt from a personal interview with Hazel M. Hanes

As told to Sharon M. Hanes on November 20, 2003.

"The next four years were the best of times and the worst of times. The best included the patriotism, camaraderie, and togetherness in a common purpose that everyone seemed to feel …. The worst was saying goodbyes and not knowing what the future might hold."

The storyline of lovers separated by the war was a popular one in Hollywood movies of the 1940s. However, in reality, not a lot of couples experienced a wartime separation. Only 8 percent of the fifty million wives in the United States had husbands in the military, and these men were not always sent overseas. However, the percentage was higher among younger wives: Of all the wives between the ages of twenty and forty-four, 11 percent had husbands in the military; among wives younger than twenty, 40 percent had husbands who were military...