Away from Home: The Transformation of Wisconsin Soldiers in the Worst of Times

Abstract

This paper focuses on a comparison between two Wisconsin soldiers who fight in different wars in the 20th Century. The first soldier is the Archie Van Gordon. He volunteered for World War II and was shipped around the world, spending most of his time in Australia, never seeing combat. The second soldier is Dennis Klimpke, who volunteered for the army at 18 and was sent out to boot camp immediately and eventually shipped out to Vietnam. These two soldiers' experiences are compared as differences and similarities are noted. Klimpke was in the middle of the war, fighting many conflicts and eventually killed in action. Van Gordon never fought in the war and returned safely to his family. The most dynamic similarity between the two is the transformation they went through from the time they left for boot camp to the time they spend in their respective wars abroad. Two separate wars, two different soldiers, yet they still change dramatically during the war while going through tremendous struggles and difficulties with their relationships back home, their war and country and their own character.