Twenty-five years earlier, during WWI, my German ancestors were made to swear allegiance to the United States around a bonfire of their German-language books.

By WWII, my great-uncle, who was one of the younger ones at that bonfire, volunteered at age 40 for the Army Air Corps "because the goddamn Nazis were giving the Germans a bad name." Only time I ever heard him utter a cuss word.