Fantasy - an Essential Component of Reality

Many boys who were born in the late 1940s to early 1950s amused themselves in the long hours of their growing up by playing at war. Toy rifles were plentiful. Toy pistols fired caps, minute power charges that put the "bang" in "Bang, you're dead." Plastic soldiers, fixed into positions of bayonet wielding, or machinegun firing, fought endless battles against memories of enemies from two wars past, Korea, and WWII. In the mists of imagination, those boys were heroes, vanquishing enemies of America, just like Audie Murphy and John Wayne.
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