Most persons in Canada,US,Britain,France,Germany,Poland,Italy,Former Soviet Union,Romania,Hungary,Austria,Bulgaria, Former Yugoslavia.Finland who have roots dating back to before 1950 in these countries have ancestors who served.They either served in the army,some irregular force partisans,or some other combatant force at one point or another between 1939-45.Plus there are large numbers who served from countries like Holland or Belgium or Slovakia.Its simple math actually 16 million americans were in uniform between 1941-45 that's 11% of all americans and about 40% of all males aged between 18-45.Again most europeans today except for the countries that were neutral have some ancestor who served.So saying my ancestor served in WW2 is not that big a deal in many countries its commmon to have an ancestor that died fighting in the war.