America's Way Of Life Expected To Change On The Homefront

While the landscape of the homefront was different in the 1940s, the sense of patriotism in the country was the same then as it is now. Before he marched off to Europe towards the end of the conflict, World War II veteran Ray Beebe remembers people on the home-front fueling the war effort with sheer will power.

"Gas was rationed. Sugar. Meat. People were working around the clock in the factories," he says.

Working around the clock, just like emergency crews are doing now in New York, as the President prepares a nation for war. The tireless work is familiar, but American soil looking like a war zone is foreign.

Lydia Lindsey, a history professor at North Carolina Central University, says life on the homefront is different.

"It's true we don't have to gear up to make guns. We don't have to do all that again, but family relationships and how we relate to people will change," she says.

She says entertainment and personal decisions may also be impacted. She says people usually stay put in times of war, meaning that they are less likely to take that next job or make that next move if the country is at war.