Award-winning historian David Nasaw, author of the new book The Wounded Generation: America After the Greatest Generation, talks with Glenn Flickinger about the human costs of WWII in the United States. In his deeply researched and powerfully written history, Nasaw reveals the hidden cost of victory in World War II—the long and often painful homecoming of millions of American veterans who returned to a nation unprepared for their wounds, visible and invisible. Drawing on letters, diaries, and oral histories, he paints a vivid portrait of men and women struggling to rebuild their lives amid postwar shortages, racial inequities, changing gender roles, and the lingering trauma of combat that was then dismissed as “battle fatigue.”

Nasaw, one of America’s most respected biographers and historians, re-examines the familiar myth of the “Greatest Generation” and restores to the story the complexity and hardship that marked the postwar years. He shows how the experience of homecoming—filled with readjustment, silence, and resilience—shaped families, communities, and the nation itself for decades to come.

This conversation will explore what World War II veterans faced when the cheering stopped and the work of coming home began—and why their experiences still matter today. Hosted by the Veterans Breakfast Club, this program continues our mission to create communities of listening around veterans and their stories, honoring not just their service in war but their journey back to peace.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!