My father was 25 years old in 1945. A 1st LT, he met my 2nd LT mother in a Louisiana Army hospital while being treated for wounds suffered in France. She was a WAC. They married after dating for six weeks, and they were married for 62 years, 8 of which were happy (family joke). My parents had five kids by 1950. A latecomer arrived in 1961.
My father carried full adult responsibilities from the time he was 19 years old. To put it mildly, that was a different world.
A book to read
Flyboys - A True Story Of Courage Paperback – 2003
by James Bradley
Americans were never told about went on in the pacific war...til years later