ABSTRACT
Stubborn American commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan have cast in ever sharper contrast the place of World War II as America's "Good War". This chapter highlights three factors what made it good. First was an easily identifiable and the wonderfully evil enemies. Second, the "Good War" was a campaign of motion. Finally, the "Good War" was a vast communitarian event: a message that the author's late mother-in-law, a loyal Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Democrat, drilled into him during dozens of conversations. Merrill's reference to the "extreme cultural isolation" of the rural South is the marker of a Yankee analyst. It is also a clue to the broader transformation of community life wrought by World War II. The mobilization of the entire nation to war, the unparalleled motion and mixing of people, and the triumph of nationalism over regionalism and localism meant that some communities would be displaced, while others would emerge or grow. The culture of rural America remained vital.
