After a Polish Pope, whose country was first to be invaded by the Germans in World War Two, we now have someone from the generation drafted at the close of the war.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was drafted when I was 17, and I spent two years, and I lost a friend in war.
I was drafted during the Korean War.
I was born in the Second World War during the Nazi invasion of my country.
I was drafted during the Korean War. None of us wanted to go... It was only a couple of years after World War II had ended. We said, 'Wait a second? Didn't we just get through with that?'
Strangely, you know, my parents, who left Poland separately and, you know, divorced, ended up marrying other people. But then they met again abroad, and they got together again.
The generation which lived through the Second World War is disappearing. Post-war generations see Europe's great achievements - liberty, peace and prosperity - as a given.
I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me.
Both of my parents were first-generation Americans, the children of Jews who left Eastern Europe around the turn of the century.
It is particularly moving, and I can say this also as a Protestant Christian, that a German - one of us - has been made Pope.
With no draft, the only people who went to war were those who wanted to, or at least those who wanted to join the military.