Mazer's The Last Mission

According to nationalww2museum.com, there were 416,800 American soldier deaths during World War II. It was very dangerous to fight in this war, and every soldier was in a life threatening situation. In the Air Force, every mission was extremely dangerous and many planes crashed into enemy territory. In the story The Last Mission by Henry Mazer, the author writes a fictional depiction of the Air Force in World War II that accurately represents real events that occurred. The reader is shown how dangerous missions were and how many underage men enrolled into the war. While the story The Last Mission by Harry Mazer is a fiction book, it is an accurate portrayal of events that occurred in World War 2.
In this time period, many underage boys snuck
11). Many young men wanted to fight in the war and they did this same exact thing because it was their only way to get in. During this war, “Men snuck their way into the war at as young as 12 years old, when legally, you needed to be 18 years old. They would use fake identification or steal somebody else’s identification in order to get in.” (Linn, 2012). All of these young men just wanted to fight for their country and do the right thing, but they were too young and not mature enough, just like Jack. Some ended up dying, but for others, the experience was life changing. After Jack ran away, his family wanted him to return home, but they couldn’t locate him. This was the case for many families during this era that couldn’t find their loved ones that had run off to the war. Jack knew that if he went into contact with his family, they would be able to find out where he was, and he would have to face consequences, “he was so close to going overseas. He couldn’t risk giving that up.” (Mazer, 1979, pg. 52). Once these boys had ran away and gotten into the war, they couldn’t go back into contact with their families because it would give up their location and their families
After Jack, the main character, lies to get into the war underage, he quickly realizes how much danger he is actually in. We are showed how serious the dangers of the war were, yet how far young boys would go in order to get in. During this war, so many men were killed, and this book does a great job showing the reader how dangerous the war was to these boys. This book does a great job depicting scenarios that actually happened in World War 2 and showing readers what the men in the war actually went