Matt A.

Before I started learning about Word War II I didn’t know much about the war in general. I also didn’t have that many feelings because I really didn’t know how big the war really was. But when I heard the stories of the veterans and how they volunteered to go into battle knowing that they might never see their families again.

During the Unit on WWII I have learned a lot about that time period. One of the topics that really changed my way of looking at the War was when we watched a movie about what Kansas City did to help in the War. I just guessed that since K.C. was "out of harms way" and in the middle of the country that we wouldn’t do anything to help out. But as I watched it, it made me realize that we contributed the second most supplies in the United States.

There is another feeling that has changed my way of looking at the War but not in a good way, in three words "Hitler and Germany." Hitler is like the biggest, most evil person that ever has and ever will live. What they did to almost 7,000,000 Jewish citizens was unforgivable. They had no business pulling them out of their homes and away from their families just because he didn’t like the way they looked. I think that if I had as much power as Hitler had I think I can honestly say that I would not have done what he did. He was just plain out mean to almost everybody, even his own home country of Austria and he really didn’t care about Germany. He even sent his troops to Russia in the dead cold of winter with not even a single blanket to keep them warm and on top of all that he wouldn’t let them leave.

My view of Japan has changed. Japan and the Japanese people are not necessarily bad. It’s what they wanted to do during WWII that was bad. At first all they wanted to do was get some oil and they would have to take over a few of the smaller islands to get the oil, then they started thinking that they would need to get the United States out of the way to do this. They went after Pearl Harbor BIG MISTAKE. If they wouldn’t have tried to bomb Pearl Harbor then they would never have gotten into WWII and gotten bombed with the atomic bomb twice. The average Japanese soldier did not know how to think for himself. The pilots were told to fly into their targets and not to come back. They blindly followed the Emperor’s orders. So I guess what I am trying to say is that you should always think about what you are going to do before you actually do it. This is what I think got the Japanese in trouble during WWII.

My life has changed a lot since I have been studying WWII. I think that since I have been here and heard the stories of the veterans’ lives that I think I have become a kinder person by knowing that if I try a little harder and do the little things then I can make some peoples’ lives a better, happier place to live. So I think all of these things about WWII have helped me to be a kinder more loving person to all people of all colors and races. So in closing I think my studies of WWII have made me an all around better person.