About Dunwoody reporter. (Sandy Springs, GA) 20??-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 2013)
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RJ N A ™ ON P ISSANCE EACHTREE 3755 Peachtree Road NE | Atlanta 404.237.2323 | renaissanceonpeachtree.com RETIRE IN STYLE. YOUR STYLE. A Leisure Care Retirement Community 1st 10 | SEPT. 6 —SEPT. 19, 2013 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net WWII veterans are a ‘precious asset’ not to be forgotten About all Lee Weinstein can remem ber now is that he was jumping up and down with excitement. He was only 5 years old at the time. Now, nearly seven decades later, he says that moment of overwhelming elation is his only personal memory of World War II. He recalls how his whole family cele brated in 1945 when news came on the big console radio in their Atlanta home that the war was ending. Even at 5, he felt the thrill. Weinstein now isn’t even sure wheth er that broadcast reported V-E Day or V-J Day, whether it marked the end of combat in Europe or against Japan. But he does recall that everyone in his fam ily welcomed the report. The war had touched them all. “My grandparents had two sons and one son-in-law serv ing,” he said. Soon their soldiers could return. But Weinstein worries that the sol diers who served in World War II and their first-hand memories of the war are disappearing. Put bluntly, the soldiers who fought in Europe and Japan are growing older and dying. Weinstein, who this month oversees his first meet ing as the new command er of the Atlanta World War II Roundtable, jokes he was chosen for the job at age 73 because the group wanted younger leadership. He says an important part of his new job is making sure veterans in their 80s or 90s have a chance to pass their stories on to an other generation. “The World War II veterans are here, and they are a precious asset,” he said one recent afternoon during a chat at his Sandy Springs home. “That’s what got me going. I’m very proud to be an American and enjoy the freedoms we have. These guys didn’t give us new freedoms, but they preserved our existing freedoms by beating Hitler and the Japanese. Hitler wanted to take over the world. It was extremely impor tant that Hitler be defeated ... and they might be speaking Japanese in Hawaii except for what [World War II soldiers] did. They need to be honored for what they did.” The Roundtable organized in 1986 as a way to collect and share experiences of World War II vets. The group now claims 250 mem bers from across north Georgia, Wein stein said. About 100 of them are World War II veterans. The Roundtable also includes veterans of American conflicts in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as history buffs such as Weinstein who never served in the military. In the past, Weinstein said, Roundta ble members primarily gathered for lun cheon meetings where they heard from veterans or historians, took part in cere monies or pa rades honor ing veterans, and support ed programs for veter ans. Wein stein thinks members of the g rou P can do more. “We’ll get veterans and send them out to the schools,” he said. “Were going to get the word out to youngsters.” When he was a youngster himself, Weinstein took an interest in a differ ent American conflict. His family lived in the Morningside area of Atlanta, and his neighborhood provided proof of the city’s role in the Civil War. His teach ers in elementary school were the grand daughters or great-granddaughters of Confederate veterans, he said. “History was a big, big thing,” he said. He found other, more tangible, con nections literally in his own back yard. He unearthed minie balls, the coni cal bullets used during the 1860s. He still keeps a set he dug up preserved in a small frame. His boyhood interest in the Civil War turned into adult participation in Atlanta’s Civil War Roundtable, where he is a past president. There, he met oth er history fans who introduced him to the World War II group. As commander of the Roundtable, he hopes to expand the organization’s speakers program by dispatching vet erans to public events and into mid dle school and high school classrooms where they can tell their stories. “I think it’s better to hear it from someone who went through it,” he said. They’ll have the chance to “meet with classes and tell them why World War II was important, and why it was impor tant that we won.” And perhaps those another gener ation will discover something worth jumping up and down about. JOE EARLE Lee Weinstein, commander of Atlanta World War II Roundtable. AROUND TOWN JOE EARLE
