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Across the U.S. last week, TIME correspondents found a big majority of veterans firmly convinced that they had caught up, certain that only the dead or disabled had suffered unrepaired damage from the biggest war's inevitable price. Most felt they had not only caught up, but taken a great leap forward. Atlanta C.P.A. Alvin E. Waldron Jr., who moved through Navy ranks and went to Georgia State College on the G.I. Bill, speaks in the thankful manner of many others: "If it hadn't been for the war, I'd probably be a truck driver today."
John Henebry, 40, Air Force Reserve major general, learned from commanding bombers in the Pacific enough to become the 26-year-old founder of Chicago's Skymotive, Inc. (executive aircraft servicers). Allen J. Lefferdink, 40, onetime Nebraska grocer boy, went to midshipman's school in 1942, captained subchaser No. 672 on Atlantic convoys, came out to build a Rocky Mountain empire of 42 companies in banking, insurance, a new luxury hotel. Sitting in his office under the old 672's flag, he says: "I run my businesses just like the Navy."
The net profit was by no means confined to the poor boy who made good; it also blessed many a well-to-do heir apparent. Among those whom service helped equip for heavy jobs waiting back home: Armour's President William Wood Prince (artillery captain), Ford's Vice President Benson Ford (Air Corps captain), IBM Boss Thomas Watson Jr. (Air Corps pilot). While an aircraft-carrier deck officer in three Pacific battles, Indiana's J. Irwin Miller, 49, gained the confidence it took to build the family owned Cummins Engine Co., Inc. into the largest U.S. maker of truck diesels. Says he: "I found out I could hold my own away from home."
Charles H. Percy, already making his young man's mark at Chicago's Bell & Howell Co. (cameras, optical equipment), went on duty in the Navy's purchasing offices, found that the torpedo sight his company was mass-producing for the Navy was useless. His blunt honesty in forcing fast cancellation of the contract so awed company officers that they later made him its president at age 29.
Quiet Dividends
Beyond specific skills and techniques, veterans have a certain sense of confidence for having worked at their generation's job, learned some of its toughest lessons as youngsters. Hollywood Writer-Director Richard (The Blackboard Jungle) Brooks, 46, a Marine rifleman in the Marianas campaign, tries to sum up one tough-minded discovery. "Before the war
I had a personal love for what is so badly described as 'the people,' "—he says, "but in the war I was completely disenchanted with the people in the mass, and by the same token developed a great respect for the individual. And I think I learned also the practical aspect of standing in line for something." Springfield (Mass.) Architect Francis Liberatori, 39, paratrooper (loist Airborne) who lost the use of both legs in Normandy, reflects something about a new quiet kind of patriotism: "I learned some useful things about men and about my country in the war. And those things I don't forget."