Preserving the "Greatest Generation"
Across the region during the 1940s, women went in the local factories such as the silk mills to make parachutes for their soldier husbands engaged in battle in Europe and the Pacific. In 2009, Cumberland celebrated the soldiers overseas and the home effort with the second annual Cumberland Goes to War. The nine-day-long series of events focused on the war and everything about life that changes.

Regiments reenacting General MacArthur's battalion of soldiers walked in unison as the privates took orders from the famous general. Seeing the reenactment invigorated the crowd with a sense of American pride. The event kicked off with a Rosie the Riveter lookalike contest.  In Windsor Hall on Baltimore Street, residents shimmied their hips to Chubby Checker's "The Twist." The all-ages crowds had an entertaining and educating experience.

World War Two's "Greatest Generation" took America's hard-work ethic and stopped the persecution of millions of Jewish, Chinese, Gypsy and other ethnic groups. This selfless generation did not just fight for America's freedom, but for the freedom of the entire world.     It is therefore important to preserve as many memories as possible from the rapidly reducing number of veterans. Only recently have large undertakings been underway to write down the stories of the dwindling number of World War II veterans. Now that the war was over sixty years ago, veterans are coming to term with their past and opening up to their
families and historians for the first time.

During Cumberland's festivities, veterans such as Clarence "Clancy" Lyall told stories of their overseas experience in Windsor Hall on November 9th. These memories were now preserved in the minds of others. "Hearing war veterans detail their experiences truly allows me to learn the hands-on experiences of local soldiers," said local resident Jennifer Moore.

My own grandfather, Vincent Diggs, served in the European theater. He has very interesting stories about his time. He was not quite eighteen at the onset of the war. He did not let that deter him from joining the cause. He told me that he enlisted at seventeen and a half because he could not wait.

"Have you ever ridden a camel before?" he later asked. He told me he was stationed in Egypt for a little while, and the humpbacked animal was the only transport he could use to cross a desert.  With the help of events such as Cumberland Goes to War, more residents and younger generations can understand the hardships and triumphs that shaped the modern world. And only by understanding the past, will the present be fully understood.