A question for older DU'ers

[Not Me]

Can you tell me how long it took this country to get past the Pearl Harbor attack?
Believe me, I am not trying to disparage anyone or forget what happened on 9/11/01, but at what point will it no longer be out there for political play.
At what point, did we move on after Pearl Harbor. One generation? More?

[melody]

1. I think it takes as long as the generation who remembers it survives

My grandfather at 89 would still tear up thinking about Pearl Harbor -- and that was in the late 80s.

I think the years mellowed the popular view of it however.

[valerief]

2. Get off my lawn, kid!

:yoiks:

[stillcool]

3. I'm not an older DU'er..

but I think as long as a soldier lives so does the war.

[boppers]

24. "as long as a soldier lives"...

That's beautiful, and tragic, and true.

Perhaps another way of looking at it is:

"How long can the soldiers be jerked around, being told that they're fighting the same war against eurasia/eastasia/terrorism"?

[Beregond2]

4. I'm not old enough to remember it, but my parents talked

about it a lot. My mother still does. For anyone born after or even shortly before like my sister, it was never an issue. But then, WW2 was finite, unlike this "war on terror" we have had foisted on us.

[angstlessk]

5. well, I ain't that old, but we did have a war with Japan who ACTUALLY

attacked us..there are still ships you can view that were sunk and I bet the people who lived through it in Hawaii probably never got over it..as a nation..I don't know..we got to have a cold war immediately after ww2..the cold war I remember..I also remember Japan sold lotsa stuff to us in the 50's specially transister radios!!

[Citizen_Penn]

6. Get past? That's hard to define, isn't it?

If you mean that it no longer affects our behavior, I think the human species is limited to one generation of memory. Maybe two, if the impact was large on the parents - it likely affects the child.

Not a 12/7 goes by that I don't mentally mark the significance of that day. How much is due to FDR's speech, and how much to may parent's marking the day - I don't know. I wasn't alive on 12/7/1941.

I think it takes at least two generations for it to be gone from cultural memory. And it depends on the culture, too.

For us, I think it will outlive you and me, both.

[Postman]

7. Do you think the Japanese lament Hiroshima as much as the US laments PH?

Or is it that The US is always the victim for everything?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Hiroshima observes the anniversary of the atomic bombing

although the rest of Japan pays only slight attention except in major anniversary year. I was there for the 40th anniversary, and that was a big deal, because it was also the 40th anniversary of the end of WWII. There were a lot of really interesting documentaries on Japanese TV, such as one about who lived and who died at Hiroshima and why, or pictures taken by G.I.'s in the earliest years of the occupation.

[MissWaverly]

8. my take is different as a Baby Boomer, my folks never talked

about it, about the War yes, about how hard it was yes, but not constantly let's knock 'em down, drag them out of their caves and punish them, no. The only thing they ever said about Hitler was, "Never Again." Did they blame the Germans, the Japanese, I dunno, I don't remember any hate talk 24/7. But by the time I was born, the Korean War had happened and the Cold War was being fought. Let me add I was born 8 years after WW II ended and it's been 7 years since
9-11. I think the leaders were different back then, they presented plans, here's what we are going to do, and they acted. It was not one big one-liner, 9-11/terror, 9-11/terror all the time. They were too busy running the country to have a 24/7 pep rally.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. There are still Pearl Harbor truthers out there.

Who claim FDR knew! and allowed it to happen in order to get America into the European war (Japan and Germany were allies) because he and Churchill were friends.

Or something.

In other words, there will always be a certain segment that clings to a tragedy that is used to self-define one's heroism.

Ask yourself this: how many people are still "fighting" the American civil war? And I don't mean the reenactors.

[hemphammock]

10. I doubt many DUers actually remember it (I was a 3 month pregnancy when it happened)

but I travelled to Japan dozens of times starting in the early 1970s and found they were pretty much over Hiroshima. I know I sure was over Pearl Harbor by the time I got to college but over the years I met a few bitter people who (somewhat understandably) never got over it.
So individuals approached a resolution on their own terms...as far as the nation is (was) concerned, a dozen years or so is my guesstimation.

[Catamount]

11. What is prompting your question kid?

Is it tomorrow's anniversary?
Sorry I don't know your age--but I know that I am "older"...and I know that some things never really die.
Famous battle and attacks are promoted to be remembered for many reasons--mostly political, but if there's someone close to you who lived through it--chances are that you will tell the story to people who are younger than you...and so forth.
Think of Napoleon or Julius Caesar...their battles and attacks are still talking points now.
I don't think that there's a definitive answer to your question.

[Not Me]

15. My reason for asking

follows Olberman's Special Comment tonite. I wonder how long 9/11 will remain an open sore in our psyche.
I wonder how long we will allow it to be used for political ends, and when we will stop letting ourselves be manipulated.

My dad died a couple years ago, and there isn't a day I don't think about him. But time has had its effect on the harsh grief and sorrow that once had been so much a part of my every day.
I just wonder when we, as a country, will be there. That's all.

And thank you all for your insights.

[stevedeshazer]

25. Thanks for asking an important question.

To your original post, I'd say the attacks on the World Trade Center will be remembered in the future much like the Pearl Harbor attacks fifty years from now, and that vivid memory will span three generations.

My Dad and his uncle were WWII veterans, and their stories will reverberate for a very long time, but I don't expect that any generation beyond my own grandkids will remember them.

For the record, I'm 53 with two grown kids in their 20s, so I might not meet your 'old' parameter yet.

[old mark]

12. There are still a lot of things going on from that attack.

There is still a lot of anti-Japanese feeling in Australia, even legal restrictions. There are still a few here who won't buy any Japanese made products.

And yes, there are still a lot of folks harboring ill feelings about the US CIvil War - on both sides.

mark

[stpalmer]

13. Weird experience

My husband said that when he went on a tour of some artifacts of the attack at Pearl Harbor while off duty in Hawaii (he's a Merchant Marine), everyone else on the tour was a Japanese tourist. He found that really odd. I guess that means that the rest of the world has moved on.

[MichiganVote]

14. Depends how you define, 'get past it'. Ultimately...I think only the Atomic bomb satisfied some.

[Bobbieo]

16. I was 17 year old college student when Pearl Harbor occured.

I got over the initial shock when we fully got into the war but it stayed with me for several years. I lived in Northern New York and our fear was always a German invasion through Newfoundland and Canada.

[Cleita]

17. I still run into people who hate the Japanese because of Pearl Harbor.

I was born before Pearl Harbor and actually WWII split our family through WWII. We were reunited after. However, most people I knew moved on. Occupation troops in Japan brought back some Japanese culture. We started liking kimonos, go aheads, and pretty things made from paper. Most people, even those who lost relatives and whose lives changed because of Pearl Harbor, like my family, were willing to move on after the war was over, but like I said, I still run into people who can't forget.

[TahitiNut]

21. My uncle, who served with the 1stID in Europe, was still throwing out anything "Made in Japan" ...

... to the day he died back in the 80s. An otherwise very easygoing union man and loyal, loving husband, he was "around the bend" about the sneak attack.

He'd have been stunned if he'd been alive when I was engaged to a Japanese gal from Hiroshima - whose family still lived there. I always wondered how he would've handled that - since he was always VERY good to me. Another uncle and aunt were very taken with her when we visited. They got along quite well. He served in North Africa and the Middle East during WW2 but held no grudge on the basis of nationality - only politics. He was a New Deal Democrat.

[Cleita]

22. It's really irrational and quite honestly I don't get it.

I learned as a very young person that you can't judge a people or a culture just because they have assholes as leaders. I really hope Iraqis and Afghanis can learn to forgive us in spite of the horrid things our government has put them through because of BushCo.

[tuckessee]

19. I'm not old enough to know personally.

But I have dealt in the ephemera of that era for aprox. three decades and it's my impression that the "Remember Pearl Harbor" war cry had mostly faded away in popular usage by 1943 in favor of other war slogans like "Keep "em Flying", "Keep 'Em Rolling", "Beat the Axis", "Slap the Jap" etc.

For example, I can't recall ever seeing any candy, gum, tobacco, etc. p.o.p. advertising, packaging or premiums with a glaring PH motif after mid 1943.

[asdjrocky]

20. I think that's a great question.

I'm not of the WW2 generation, but I can tell you I met many people in the 70s and 80s that were of that era, and many of them still harbored ill feelings toward Japan.

I knew one fellow that refused to buy Japanese based on that war.

[SoCalDem]

23. There's a difference between what used to be "commemoration"

and the maudlin wallowing we do these days..

People certainly erected memorials, and the date was remembered, but this yearly "re-enactment/re-living" of it is sick..


About Pearl Harbor..

No one had TVs..people did not travel, due to rationing of gasoline, rubber for tires etc....there was also a big ole world war going on.. People just got on with the business of winning the war and trying to survive..

There was a whole lot of suffering going on, so the impetus to the beginning of the war was noted, but not wallowed in..

Republicans love blood-sportish things, and love the pomp and militarism, so even though this happened on their watch, they claim no responsibility, and the way they "celebrate" it every year is sickening..but they really enjoy it.. Probably wish each other a "happy 9-11 Day".:puke: