How did veterans of the the first world war react to the outbreak of the second?

A quick preface. As a general rule, we don’t post where we moderate. Even though we’d like to think we can be pretty objective, it just is bad practice, and obviously I’ve been moderating this thread. But we also don’t like to see popular questions go unanswered, and despite being active all day, this one unfortunately is still that way, and it is impossible not to have some curiosity watching it sit there to boot. So that all being put out there, I have given it a shot, but I would also note I have immediately removed this post myself, and left it to other members of the moderation team to make any appropriate judgements on it. If you are reading this and think this is BS, yell at them not me!

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So, now, as to the question itself, it isn’t an easy one to answer, and offering a truly broad overview of “veterans”, even in a single country let along many of them, is a fairly gargantuan task which I suspect has at least in part been why this remains unanswered. I’m not going to take such a Macro view here, but instead focus narrowly, quite narrowly in fact, on one veteran, although a rather prominent one.

Sgt. Alvin York was a Medal of Honor winner in “The Great War”, and certainly one of the most famous - if not the simply best known - American soldier of that conflict in the years after. His heroics, single-handily taking on a massive amount of Germans, not only made for a stirring story, but his biography - a one time conscientious objector turned war hero - only added to the aura.

Two decades later, as the Second World War broke out and America initially stood on the sidelines, York proved to be a fairly vocal proponent for increased American involvement. Even prior to the beginning of “World War II”, York had shown himself to be a stirring voice against isolationism, and of the potential for American military power to be a guarantor of world peace. In 1937, as the Second Sino-Japanese War was already seeing hundreds of thousands of casualties in Asia, he rather insightfully noted the possibility that continued Japanese incursions would draw America into the war. Not only was he of the belief that the US needed to stand “ready to fight again in the interest of peace”, but even that the US ought to be more forceful and proactive - “I’d just as soon get into it now as later”. He also wasn’t sparing Hitler in his views, although initially less forceful about actual American intervention. Commenting to reporters at a memorial event held just in the wake of the Munich Agreement, he showed no illusions that Hitler would remain satisfied, opining that “If we want to stop Hitler, we must knock him off the block”. A few months later, as the world continued to inch closer to war, he told reports that the United States had a duty to rearm, and “ought too be prepared to defend the Western Hemisphere”, and although he expressed optimism that conflict might still be averted, he felt America needed a strong military in the event war did break out, for a bristling armed neutrality.

The outbreak of war in Europe, of course, only bolstered his views, giving truth to his prophecies, and shifting his mind from a mere necessity to defend America against potential invasion to the possible need to return 'over there'. In the fall of 1940, the United States having just begun the augmentation of its armed forces with its first ever peacetime draft, York was not only an active proponent of the measure, but offered himself up for active involvement as well. Although in his early ‘50s and well past service age, he served on his local county draft board. Recalling his own religions beliefs that had initially kept him from taking up arms, int was reported at that time that he was planning to speak with any local conscientious objectors in an effort to change their minds, similar to how his own had been in conversation with an officer.

As the war in Europe continued, he only became more vocal. In the Spring of ’41 at a banquet held at the Alvin C. York Institute, a private school he had founded, he beat the drum of war, strongly opining that the United States had a moral duty to be involved, and castigating the isolationists:

America now stands at a crossroads. This is no time to compromise with Hitlerism. Those who advocate such a source are following the illusion which has already plunged Europe over the brink of annihilation.

Late in July, he gave a speech to the Tennessean Society on the necessity of continued aid to the beleaguered UK, noting that "we must give England every aid we can, and as quickly as we can". American 'boots' on the ground were still something that he had reservations about, but he certainly had no doubt about which side was right, and America's obligation to be backing them.

These speeches, in fairly small settings, were nevertheless notable enough for the national news, and later in the year, York words echoing similar sentiments would be heard on a much more national stage in any case. Even aside from his Gary Cooper staring biopic that came out win the summer of ’41 - a strong image of the American citizen-soldier for the audiences’ minds, and likely to “be useful in awakening America in a time of crisis” as FDR himself noted - on the Armistice Day (Veterans Day) ceremony at Arlington Cemetery, less than a month before the United States would find itself at war, Yorks earlier remarks from a Memorial Day speech were utilized by the President himself, who quoted his response to critics:

The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them, and then keep fighting eternally to hold them.

Whatever we knew or thought we knew a few years or months ago, we know now that the danger of brutality, the danger of tyranny and slavery to freedom loving people can be real and terrible.

To be sure, none of this ought to be taken as the voice of American veterans. The result of that conflict had been considerably less than hoped for for many American veterans who had gone “over there” thinking they were making the world safe for Democracy, and felt little had come of it. Especially prior to 1939, York has earned pushback from groups like what would coalesce as the America First Committee, the ‘premier’ isolationist group in the country, although it by no means abated even after the invasion of Poland. In Memorial Day speech quoted by FDR, it was to those detractors that he had address himself, responding to the people who had asked him “You fought to make the world safe for democracy. What did it get you?”

Sources:

Mastriano, Douglas V. Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2014.

Lee, David D. Sergeant York: An American Hero Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1985.

Sergeant York may tell objectors how he felt. 1940. New York Times (1923-Current file), Oct 18, 1940.

HITS 'CALAMITY HOWLERS’: Alvin York Says Hitler 'Can, Will and Must Be Beaten' 1941. New York Times (1923-Current file), May 18, 1941.

PRESIDENT WARNS NATION IS FACING WORLD WAR AGAIN. New York Times (1923-Current file), Nov 12, 1941.

Sgt. york says america needs more planes, and submarines. 1939. New York Herald Tribune (1926-1962), Jul 14, 1939.

Roosevelt informs york film will help rouse U.S. 1941. New York Herald Tribune (1926-1962), Jul 31, 1941.

Tennesseans hear Sgt. York. 1941. New York Herald Tribune (1926-1962), Jul 04, 1941.

Edit: Tinkering, spelling, points of clarity.