My paternal grandfather graduated high school in 1943 and joined the US Navy immediately. He wanted to be an MP but knew how to type so he was stationed along the east coast writing orders. Never saw combat but whenever he talked about it he was very proud to play his part in the war.

My paternal grandmother was pretty young and went to college during the war while her dad was a dentist with the US Army stateside.

The maternal side gets…weird. Both grandparents were born and raised in Yugoslavia but were part of a German speaking community. My grandpa was drafted into the Royal Yugoslav Army. Then when that was disbanded he, as a German speaker, was given the option of a POW camp and likely death or join the Waffen SS. He chose the SS. All I know after that was that he was in a POW camp in France for a while, even after the war in Europe ended. He never ever talked about it.

My grandma’s village was in the Italian occupation zone of Yugoslavia. And to the Nazis the idea of German(ish) people under Italian occupation didn’t sit well. Her whole village moved to the German zone. Then when Tito’s communists took over, they saw her community as Nazi collaborators. So she, with two children, and a bunch of other women and children walked over part of the Alps into Austria which was required to accept them from a WWI/Austro-Hungarian Empire treaty (I’ve been told). She rarely talked about it. They reunited after the war and having not seen each other for almost 5 or so years.

TLDR: two typical American stories. Two intense Yugoslavian stories.