Commentary by Ward Degler

I’m old enough to have been involved in World War II. From a kid’s perspective, of course.

I was in the first grade when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. While I wasn’t sure where Japan was, and had no clue what Pearl Harbor was, I joined all the other kids in the U.S. in supporting the war effort.

I planted, tilled and harvested a victory garden. Growing vegetables allowed food producers to provide meals for the war. Millions of military K-rations were the result.

I bought war savings stamps. In addition to war bonds, the government issued 10-cent and 25-cent stamps for kids to buy.

A couple of us collected scrap metal and paper. Somehow, it was all recycled for the war effort.

Coming home from school every day, I’d run into the paper boy and ask, “What are the headlines?” He would pull a paper from his bag and read, “Marines invade Iwo Jima.” At home, I would pore over the world map my dad had taped to my bedroom wall and stick a pin in the tiny spot that was an important Philippine Island.

And I listened to the radio. Several years ago, I was digging through some magazines at the library when I ran across an article about wartime radio.

When the war broke out, men were drafted, and women went to work in defense plants. This left a nation of turnkey, unsupervised after-school kids.

President Roosevelt recognized this as a problem — kids left on their own can get into trouble. He invited the heads of the nation’s broadcasting companies to a meeting at the White House. Would they be willing to put together short serial broadcasts of adventure stories for kids? Fifteen-minute adventures that started at 4:30 in the afternoon?

The broadcasters got to work, and we literally ran home from school so we could tune to the adventures of “Captain Midnight,” “Jack Armstrong – All American Boy,” “Tailspin Tommy” and “Terry & the Pirates.”

This didn’t help win the war, of course, but it kept a nation of kids from trouble while our dads fought overseas.