The people who fought/had fought became...

I think the people who fought in WW2 became shadows of their former selves. (The beginning of a story).

The war ended. The people who had fought in WW2 became shadows of their former selves. (after telling a story).

Is it just me, or does the past perfect sound better in the second sentence than it does in the first? I'm not sure which tense to use in the first sentence. The past perfect sounds kind of weird since there is no established story, but it also doesn't seem completely wrong to me..