For most people I know my age and younger it is their grandparents or even great-grandparents that were involved in WWII. Unlike today it was very unusual around the time of my birth for people in their late 30's or early 40's to be having children but that's precisely what my parents did. For that reason I'm only one generation removed from what is still referred to at "the war." It's not the distant past for me. It's my parents. My father fought in North Africa in Italy. My mother lived in Belgium during the German occupation.