The need for all hands on deck broke down the nation’s racial, ethnic, and gender boundaries. Men were equally subject to the draft, and by 1945, roughly a million African Americans, 500,000 Latinos, and 1.5 million Italian Americans had served in uniform. Around a million Polish Americans, horrified by Hitler’s treatment of their homeland, served alongside roughly 550,000 Jews, 33,000 Japanese Americans, 30,000 Arab Americans, and 20,000 Chinese Americans. Native Americans served at a higher percentage than any other ethnic group—roughly 25,000 people, one-third of all able-bodied men from
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