With the number of American Veterans or sons of WWI veterens around we really need there to be a reason for why so many would be in the same place at the same time. As I said before, only just over 1% of American troops who went to Europe during WWI were actually killed, with a further >3% injured.
The best reason I can think of to explain this concentration of veterans would be that they deliberately sought each other out due to their similar circumstances, something which did happen in the real world during the Great Depression where service veterans and their family built entire shanty towns together to help support one another.
The largest concentration of American casualties during WWI was the Battle of the Argonne Forest in late 1918, involving 1.2 million American soldiers, and leading to 26,277 killed and 95,786 wounded. This included elements of both the 1st US Army, which had been formed in August 1918, and the 2nd US Army, who had been brought together in October 1918 specifically for the purpose of pushing the American lines forward. Both ended up in a 'meat grinder' conflict with the German front lines, which lasted until the Armistice of 11 November 1918, 47 days later.
The 1st were mainly comprised of newly recruited soldiers who had been sent to Europe 'green', but who'd had about nine months of experience in the trenches before the push. The 2nd were pulled in from veterans of the Spanish–American War under Lieutenant General Bullard, who were more used to the stand up fighting seen in that conflict to the trench running of WWI. Characters in their early to mid-thirties would've most likely been in the 1st Army, while any forty-fifty or older would've likely been from the 2nd.
I'm a history student but I'm a little rusty on the historical setting of the USA during the 1930s and 1940s. After the Prohibition Era is where my memory goes south. I'll try to brush up on it a bit before I consider joining this RP.
The RP is set literally right after the Prohibition era, with the action starting in 1934 and Prohibition ending in December 1933, and given the rural setting very little would've changed culturally in the few months since the law passed so I think you'll be good.
EDIT: An important note to consider is that although the Federal government repealled Prohibition in December 1933, Florida still had a constitutional ban on liquor until November 1934, which makes Henry Tackettt's basement full of booze illegal, and explains his reluctance to let menfolk into the main house.
Having said that,
this article has some useful clip notes on the state of the nation to get a general feel for wider cultural points which would've affected the characters at the time. Apart from Prohibition being repealled the New Deal programme has just started affecting the American population as well, leading to an economic boom for people such as Farmer Tackett, who'd have started receiving economic support from the government a couple of months before the RP begins.
This could also explain the sudden influx of new characters, since many unemployed people and their families were moving around the country at this time, finding work in places where it hadn't been available until a short while earlier thanks to the New Deal.
