Dear Readers,

Today's teenagers have to cope with pressures at home, some created when both parents work and others from the effects of divorce. At school they face changing expectations and requirements. After school, they walk a tightrope of outside influences ranging from “smart” mobile technology, booze and other recreational compounds. No question, today’s teenagers have a tough time.

But let me take you back a few years when teenagers faced a different set of problems.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, teenagers were born into a national depression before they invented food stamps and other forms of government help.

On top of that, a guy named Hitler set a match to Europe and the Japanese empire picked a fight with Uncle Sam.

All of a sudden, thousands of teenagers, from Boothbay to Boston, from Chicago to Sioux City, from San Diego to St. Paul, put on uniforms, laced up boots, shouldered rifles and marched into conflicts on the other side of the world.

They slogged through the sands of North Africa, into the mud of Italy, and through the hedgerows of France. Others fought over tiny islands in the Pacific.

Some became sailors on mighty ships. Others became airmen who flew thousands of miles through flack and fighters to drop munitions on towns and factories.

Many did not come home. The teenagers of the World War II era died by the thousands.

After peace was signed, the teenagers who survived went to college, courtesy of the greatest social program in American History: the G.I. Bill. Others went back into uniform to Korea, a conflict called a “police action” that looked a whole lot like a war.

Finally, the former teenagers turned into husbands and fathers and grandfathers.

Many never spoke of their war time experiences.

This weekend, you, your kids and your grandkids, have a chance to peek into the memory banks of the teenagers of the 1940s by attending Wings Over Wiscasset.

There, at that town’s airport, there will be a whole series of activities to help us remember the 1940s and what went on during that era.

The big attraction will be the warbirds, the snarling fighter and bomber planes that fought and survived World War II. Then there will be a military camp reenactment.

Music is part of today’s teenage experience, and it was the same in the 40s. But then the big bands were in fashion and dancing meant swing dancing, a strange style where you actually got to hold your partner.

Best of all, the Wiscasset event attracts many veterans who were the teenagers of the 1940s. Chances are some of them might just share a few stories.

More than 16 million Americans served in the military during that era. Only a million or so of them are still with us. They say about 600 die every day.

Wings Over Wiscasset gives all of us a chance to meet the veterans who were those teenagers who survived the 1940s. Don't miss a chance to meet them and listen to their stories.

And don't forget to thank them for saving America.