Blog # 5 Peggy Terry / E.B (Sledgehammer) Sledge

In the story of Peggy Terry she worked at a shell-loading plant in Viola, Kentucky. This was during WWII which meant that women had started to take charge in the work force and do more at the home front. In class we watching video's about how women were still not getting the proper respect in the work force, or as much money, but they were working. Peggy, her mother and sister had to take turns working because they had children at home that needed to be watched. This just shows how strong and how much stress was put upon women at this time. The men were off fighting in the war, and then here the women are trying to balance work, family and trying to make sure there is enough food on the table. Peggy, "think[s] of how little [she] knew of human rights, union rights" (Terkel 191). The working conditions that she worked in were not the best and must of been difficult. This was a time that was changing for women and it was a time when many people were frightened because of the war that was going on. The women, like Peggy did in her story helped the men build bombs for the men off at war. Without these women off working, there would be no help for the soldiers off at war. One part of the story that shocked me, or that I never really thought about and that we never really talked about in class, was how soldiers acted when they returned home after the war. Peggy recalls, "When he came back he was an absolute drunkard. And he used to have the most awful nightmares....I'd just sit for hours and hold him while he just shook....He started slapping me around and slapped the kids around. He became a brute" (Terkel 194). The caution that these men that were off fighting now have, and their whole culture shock change is so different now. It has got to be so difficult. I feel so bad for them.

I really enjoyed reading the story of E.B (Sledgehammer) Sledge because you really got a sense of what it felt like to be off at war and the emotions behind it. You could feel how at the battlefront the soldiers were being tested during this war. E.B. at the beginning of his story talked about how there is nothing “macho” about war at all. People have these perceptions about if you go off to war that you are going to become a man and that it is not that bad. But that is clearly not the reality of it until you are in the midst of it. E.B said, “We were in it to get it over with, so we could go back home and do what we wanted to do with out lives” (Terkel 197). E.B did not find anything glamorous or macho about it and just was doing what he was told to do to get it over with. E.B got to encounter the Japanese and the war he was in was a total savage. His drill instructor at boot camp would tell him, “You’re not going to Europe; you’re going to the Pacific. Don’t hesitate to fight the Japs dirty…It’s not sportsmanlike. Well, nobody has taught the Japs that, and war ain’t sport. Kick him in the balls before he kicks you in yours” (Terkel 199-200). This shows the struggle and the hatred that people had towards the Japanese and yet they did not even know them. It was a war and the Americans were just told to fight against them and so they did. A lot of men did not know what they were fighting for when they were off at war, and this just shows how the men were being tested at the battlefront.