Before I was old enough to understand the terminology behind the phrase "World War", all I saw was an image of the entire globe covered in people fighting each other. It just seems a little bit weird to see two soliders trying to shoot each other off the very highest peak of Mount Everest. Stranger still, I though that World War I was the first round of the fight, and that World War II was the second half. A bit like a football match, only with more violence.

Confused

When I was 7 years old I heard a news report about the Vietmnm cease fire, and I thought the reporter said "Sea Spyer" and I thought that the "Sea Spyer" was a secret agent on a ship.

Charlie

My grandparents built a bombshelter in their garden during the 2nd World War.When I was a child, I was terrified of it, because I believed that there were rotten remains of dead soldiers from the war in there.I do not where I got the idea from.My grandparents actually never used the shelter for anything else, but to store their jars of homemade jam.

L

Based on a line in the Star-Spangled Banner, I used to think that wars were fought by each side firing cannons at one another's flags. Whoever's flag was obliterated first was the loser. That's why Francis Scott Key was so happy that his flag was still there in the morning.

Andrea

When I was very young, probably about six or so, my father told my younger sister and I that he had been a Ranger in Vietnam. Until I was in my second year in college, I had this mental image that he was one of the people that made sure that the two sides “played nice” and that he made sure that the animals in the jungle weren’t hurt.

It was a bit of a shock to finally figure it out...

- Saint

I used to love studying the Civil War ( I still do ) since I was in 1st grade. Well, I told my friend about it. We both were in 2nd grade. Well, I told him that to win a battle, you had to take the enemies' flag, as they took the enemies' colors in the Civil War. Whenever we played war, we always "took the enemies' flag". I guess that's how capture the flag came to be.

UJL

During the Civil War, a group of artillery was called a battery. I read about this while looking in my sister's history book. She was in 5th grade, I was in 1st. Well, I belived that you could blow someone up if you threw a battery at someone hard enough.

UJL

As a child I believed that a gas war was when attendants lined up with the hoses and shot gas across the street to another station.

Anon

For a while, I thought hand grenades were called "hen grenades" and they were made of rotten eggs.

Athazagoraphobia

my logic told me that, being a bad thing, any war was forbidden and therefore practically impossible. when i learned that there are many wars going on in this world all the time, i didn't understand why noone came to arrest those responsible.

Anna Asisa

I used to believe that there had been eleven world wars, however I was confused why there weren't many movies and stories about 2, 3, 4 etc

I assumed that they hadn't been very good wars.

(Pick the child of the seventies watching all the bad 60's TV shows - Desert Rats, Combat, Baa Baa Black Sheep etc etc)

Adar

My Grandma (who lived through WW2) used to make me wash my hands alot. Whenever I complained about it, she would say I had to do it to fight the "Germans." For a long time I thought "germs" and "Germans" were synonymous and that the people of Germany were trying to make me sick.

JCB

I'm an American. When I first learned about the U.S. Civil War in school, I seized upon the alternate name "War Between The States" and took it too literally. I got into my head that the war unfolded as every single state going to war against every other state that bordered it. So the entire United States was a big nest of shooting border wars!

Fortunately I held this belief only briefly, but the lasting effect is that I still have a distaste for the name War Between The States.

Lamont D. Sanford

When i heard about Irish Bombers on the news during the 70s i used to think that planes were dropping bombs.

Moose

When I was very young, I used to think that wars were what happened when you got your brother angry at you and he threw a chair at you. I considered myself very lucky to be an only child.

Anon