Moral/Ethical/Spiritual Reasoning & Dilemmas

I. Economic Dilemma: You are a twenty-one-year-old woman who has spent the war working in an aircraft factory. Your husband was killed in the Pacific and you have no children. You knew when you were hired that you would have to give your job up to a man at the end of the war, but your boss seems to think that you are talented enough to remain employed. The war ends and the soldiers return home. Do you give up your job at the factory so a soldier can support himself/his family? If so, how do you make a living in post-war America? What do you do?

II. Transportation Dilemma: You are traveling to Alabama to visit relatives in 1944 when a black soldier in uniform boards the bus. As the soldier begins to take a seat near the front of the bus, the bus driver tells him that “your kind sit at the back.” What do you do?

III. Communication Dilemma: As an editor of a small newspaper in Salina, Utah, you are called one evening with a report that several German POWs in a nearby work camp have been shot and killed by a local man. You want to report the news accurately but are afraid of evoking the wrath of unsympathetic town residents and appearing unpatriotic. How do you balance the need for accurate information with anti-German sentiment? How do you respond to your readers who have lost sons, husbands, and fathers in Germany who feel that a little revenge is called for? What do you do?

IV. Moral, Ethical, and Religious Behavior: You are a Jehovah’s Witness living in America during World War II. You are a conscientious objector and speak out against American involvement. You are expected to support the war effort by buying war bonds, rationing, growing a victory garden, and participating in civil defense, but you resist. Your children are taught at school that those who do not support the war effort are un-American. How do you rationalize your position on the war and how do you respond to the pressure from your neighbors, friends, and countrymen?

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