Everywhere you went during the war there was something that could scare a little kid.

Tina Bouchard  b. 1938

 I thought that spies were around every corner, listening and reporting back to Germany or Japan.  In downtown Mobile there were posters on lamp posts that said “loose lips sink ships.”  I didn’t want to have loose lips and worried about what that was.   The pictures of Japanese soldiers they showed were terrifying to me.  The worst was in the movies where we saw the endless lines of German soldiers marching.  My friends and I wondered how we could ever beat such an army.    My uncle Roy was in the Army and he said we would beat them for sure, so I held on to that.

It’s funny that when I talk to people my age today, they mostly say, “Oh, yes, I forgot about that.  I was afraid back then.”  I hope I forget someday.