More ignorant questions about WWII-era military

Hello folks,

Some time back I asked a question about deployment to Korea and you were all extremely helpful. I am back with another set of questions to display my embarrassing ignorance of all things military.

I have two (American) characters who each lost a brother in WWII. This is a point of connection between the two women. However, they are of different social classes, and it would be very interesting to me if their experiences of their brothers’ deaths could differ on that basis. Would it be realistic for that to be the case? How?

One of the brothers was a college-educated, fairly privileged young man—his family isn’t gigantically rich in the book’s present but it is well-off, and has a long history of public service, in the form of judges and congressmen and the like. The boy was in law school when the US entered the war and probably could have avoided service or at least wrangled a safe posting, but he wanted to serve. I imagine him in some Yossarian-like situation, part of a bomber crew over the Mediterranean. Is that a reasonable posting for a person like that? What would his family know about it? How would his death have been treated?

The other brother was a boy from a military family who (like his nephew, the boy getting shipped off to Korea in the novel’s present) enlisted in the army as soon as he was old enough. He would have been in his early-to-mid-20s when the war started, so already having been in the army for a few years. I suppose a fellow like that could have died in any of a thousand ways. What is a likely scenario for him? What was he doing, and what would his family know about it? Again, I would like the class difference to reflect in their different experiences, if I can.

Finally, what memorabilia of these young men would their families have? Some years ago I was at a funeral of a WWII veteran at which his widow elected to have an honor guard, and they presented her with a symbolically folded flag. Would that have happened even in the heat of the war (did the army have resources for that)? Would the prominent family’s loss be treated differently by the army than the other family’s loss? The sister of one of the boys owns a restaurant; if she had a little display case there with artifacts of her brother’s military service (and her father’s service, a generation before), what would likely be in it? Would she keep the folded flag in it—is that an acceptable thing to do? What other kind of memorabilia might she have?

This has gotten quite long; every time I try to think this through I realize there is more I don’t know. I tried some Googling and found only vague histories of the honor guard; I couldn’t find specifics about how WWII deaths were treated, though I know this must be documented somewhere. I know the collective knowledge of AW can help me and I am extremely grateful.

Thanks everyone. This is useful information that will help me put my scene together in a realistic and meaningful way. (It isn’t a major plot point, just one facet of one relationship.) Just a clarifying question: if the soldier’s remains stay in Europe, does the family still receive a flag? And if they do—would it be appropriate for his sister to display the folded flag in a display case in her restaurant? I know there are rules about what one can do with a flag and she would presumably respect them, if not for herself than to avoid antagonizing her customers.

(The reason I want the flag in the display case is because I want another character to see it from across the room. If it doesn’t belong there, I can manage—I’ll give the character a reason to go look at the display more closely, and see the Purple Heart and whatever else is in it instead.)

Thank you so much Siri! Yes, I think display of the flag is entirely consistent with who this character is as a person, and what her values are. She comes from a military family, and is proud of her family’s tradition of service, which is why she displays relics of it (tastefully) in her restaurant.