He traveled in Germany until VE Day (May 8, 1945), ending in Linz, Austria. He took a seven day leave to England. There, he went to a hotel with a friend for a drink and saw a person he liberated from a camp. He was the owner of the hotel and rewarded them with wine and food. The man and the friend talked in French as he ate and drank. At the end of the war in Europe in July of 1945, he was transferred back to the Unites States for reassignment to the Pacific, but he never went to the Pacific because VJ Day occurred while he was still on leave. Due to the presidential order that all service men with fifty service points or more would stay in the United States, he was reassigned to the Army post office in Oakland, California. He was then reassigned to Military Police on street duty in Tacoma, Washington, in November of 1945. On January 6, 1946, he was honorably discharged at Fort Lewis, Washington, where he promptly ate a half a head of lettuce. He returned home to Holmen, Washington for thirty days. “We were heroes, we talked too loud and swore and drank too much. The kids came home men – all grown up now,” he wrote (Van Loon 11).
In his letters, he did not write about his feelings. He did what had to be done and tried not to let his feelings get to him. His grandmother had died while he was away, and that was a private and important time to him. He was uncomfortable with people seeing how the war had affected him. He focused on seeing the situations he was in objectively in order to function. He described a trip he went on to France, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia with the Wisconsin Homemakers chorus. They drove through many of the cities and villages he had seen in the war, which were rebuild, neat, and clean now. The tour was scheduled to visit Mauthausen, a concentration camp he had helped liberate. However, the schedule was cut short and they did not go to the camp. He contemplated whether he would have been able to visit a plan where he had seen such painful things. He wrote, “I’ve wanted and succeeded in putting the experience behind me and then go on with the rest of my life,” (Van Loon 1).
In his letters, he did not write about his feelings. He did what had to be done and tried not to let his feelings get to him. His grandmother had died while he was away, and that was a private and important time to him. He was uncomfortable with people seeing how the war had affected him. He focused on seeing the situations he was in objectively in order to function. He described a trip he went on to France, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia with the Wisconsin Homemakers chorus. They drove through many of the cities and villages he had seen in the war, which were rebuild, neat, and clean now. The tour was scheduled to visit Mauthausen, a concentration camp he had helped liberate. However, the schedule was cut short and they did not go to the camp. He contemplated whether he would have been able to visit a plan where he had seen such painful things. He wrote, “I’ve wanted and succeeded in putting the experience behind me and then go on with the rest of my life,” (Van Loon 1).