VJ Day: WWII veteran Isidore Horvitz recalls the end of the war

"It’s a whisper now, and in Rhode Island, it’s a three day weekend for state employees.

But in 1945, “VJ Day” for “Victory over Japan Day,” was not a whisper. It was a full-throated roar of victory, the noise of quiet crying or the long-drawn sigh of a young man who, finally, after years, knew he would live.

Isidore Horvitz joined the United States Navy at 23.

“I joined after the war broke out in Europe,” the 93-year-old Horvitz said Monday. “After the Germans rolled across the Low Countries.”

A recent graduate of Harvard with a degree in anthropology, Horvitz, like many other young men of his time, was waiting to find his place in the war.

“I knew that I’d get into it eventually,” he said. “And I had a spirit of adventure.”

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VJ Day: WWII veteran Isidore Horvitz recalls the end of the war - Fall River, MA - The Herald News

 

Nice article Jag, thanks for posting.

 

Oddly enought, only Rhode Island in the USA celebrates what could be called VJ day, with an official state holiday, and it is no longer called; VJ Day.

Now it is simply Victory Day, and celebrates the complete end of WW2. Victory Day is now always on the second Monday in August, so the date itself changes each year. This year it was yesterday, the 10th.

Seems odd that the end of WW2 is only offically celebrated in one of our 50 states does it not?

 

It does indeed, that is astonishing, I never knew that.