By Jean K. Gogolin
May 8 was the 80th anniversary of VE Day - Victory in Europe.
That day in 1945, I was a 5-year-old little girl waiting on the front stoop for my two older brothers to come home from school. When the school bus pulled up, they got out and ran across the lawn yelling, “The war is over!”
Soon the whole neighborhood was out, people hugging, screaming, crying.
Hitler was dead. We’d defeated fascism.
My father was an air raid warden during World War II. We lived 20 miles from the Philadelphia Navy Yard, a prime German target.
I remember sitting in the cellar waiting for the All Clear siren. I remember watching my mother shop with coupons, and crying when her brother, a Pennsylvania farm boy, joined the Army and went to Europe to fly bombing missions with the Royal Air Force.
I remember her walking me the few blocks to the Cornwells Heights Railroad Station to see FDR’s funeral train come through, people weeping as the black-draped car passed.
I remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Japanese surrender. I lived through the McCarthy era, and Civil Rights. Sputnik. Graduated from college in 1960 with a degree in political science. Cast my first presidential vote for Richard Nixon, whose crimes now seem almost quaint.
I married and raised three children here in New Jersey. Became a reporter, a magazine editor, a corporate speechwriter.
I’ve lived through the Cold War, Y2K and 9/11. I’ve watched five grandchildren grow up. Traveled every continent but Africa.
As we mark Memorial Day, honoring those who gave their lives to defend democracy — our democracy — I can’t help but reflect on how fragile that democracy now feels.
Through all those decades, I never imagined that our country would face the real and present threat of an attempted authoritarian takeover by a populist with fascist-like tendencies.
Brazenly. Under our eyes. With so few voices in positions of power sounding the alarm — and even fewer taking action to stop it.
What now?
Jean K. Gogolin, a resident of Union County, is a former magazine editor and a retired corporate speechwriter.
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