Literary Discussions

My father served as part of the American occupation forces in Germany after their surrender. Whenever they reached a new town they pitched their tents on the town green. There were ONLY children women and elderly/infirm males.  One elderly professor had a young, attractive wife. Each day the professor would take his wife from tent to tent and if anyone gave a tin of K-rations then she would enter the tent and gratify their desires. These were not wicked people. In a time of prosperity they would have been quite respectable. But when one is starving one sometimes makes difficult choices. In France one family lived in the basement of their bombed house. Grandparents, parents, siblings and one beautiful teenage girl were all in one room. There was a sheet in one corner and a cot behind the sheet. One American soldier would come each day with food and then take the girl behind the sheet. Again these were decent people who were in desperate times. One can only know the temper and metal of one's character when one is IN some desperate situation. Everything else is idle speculation.