Vera Lynn, age 103

We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when

That song always makes me weepy, what a terrible time WWII was.

What an inspirational lady! I'm a singer, and performed her songs regularly in residential homes, they were guaranteed to lift everyone's spirits and get all the staff and residents singing too!

For me it was The White Cliffs of Dover. The line “tomorrow, when the World is free,” is what stands out.

I was born in Kent, not far from the white cliffs which took on a particular significance after Dunkirk. Very much a symbol of freedom.

Kent was where most of the fighting during the Battle of Britain took place and I remember playing in a bomb crater in the woods. I didn’t know it was a bomb crater at the time, I just thought it was a big hole.

I was too young to be aware of the war, but the world I grew up in still felt the after-effects. Remembering the feeling that we had in those times is a primary cause of how I feel about the situation today.

I was born in the 60s. My parents grew up during the war and wouldn’t stop going on about it. I remember being told off for saying I wished we could have another war soon. My mother asked how I could say such a thing and my answer was because she’d made it sound such fun.

As you know our land in the US was barely threatened. My family may not have lived much differently if there had been no war. My grandfather served as a soldier at the tail end of WWI and his sons served at the time of Korea without actually seeing combat. Come to think of it, I barely missed going to Vietnam and my oldest brother was kept in the states then to do carpentry work at Fort Hood. So my empathy concerning these wars is once removed from the actual events.

Living in Kent meant the war was never far away. I remember spitfires flying overhead for some airshow that seemed to be going on somewhere nearby.

That would happen about two or three times a year.

I lived through it...and remember things like the war's end and the "black outs" quite well. My father was an air-raid warden...and had to patrol the neighborhood during black-outs. Heavy drapes were required to make sure no light leaked out at all. I remember cars with headlights painted with black paint on the upper half to deflect their light down as much as possible. I remember the blackout sirens...and the rationing coupons.

WWII sucked.

But Vera Lynn singing was great. I never got into the singing of the American counterpart, Kate Smith. Kate Smith never pulled it off the way Vera Lynn did for me...but she was very popular with lots of people.

The base I was stationed on when I was in the UK had a squadron of Lancasters that flew regularly. Nothing on this planet equals the sound of a Lancaster during flight...especially low flight when taking off and landing.

I have many stories about WWII but I'm fading and need to sleep.;;;;;; Mine are not first hand, but my mother and grandmother lived thru this, I was very young and liked to hang back and just listen to the stories......It was so awful, but not nearly as awful here as it was for our allies....

What makes me sad is the shallowness or ignorance of about a third of the American population who thinks that Washington Culture is the problem.......**** balls, please send responsible, patriotic people to D.C......it just might solve the shitstorm we are enduring.