When I was in school, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was still fresh in the minds of most people. Between that atrocity, and the other atrocities revealed over the next few years, the evils of the world were revealed. I doubt many of the younger generation of today even think about the significance of today. That, and the youngest have little idea of the horrors their parents felt after 9/11. The past fades away, those that dealt with the attacks on the U.S. slowly die off, and eventually the significance of the events are mostly forgotten.
So, at a little before 8:00 am, it will be the 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I won't forget the day, but many will. My generation is fading, my parent's generation is gone, and history becomes only a curiosity of those that make the effort to research the past.
As a very young child I remember a Memorial Day parade. A Cadillac convertible had 3 or 4 men, Spanish American war veterans, was at the head of the parade. A larger group of somewhat younger men, WWI veterans marched behind. WWII vets and Korvets followed. Almost all are gone now.
ReplyDeleteMy father couldn't get his mother to sign the papers for him to enlist, so he had to wait until he was 18 to join the Coast Guard. By the time he finished boot camp, the war was over,. He did go to occupied Japan; even visited one of the cities destroyed by the atomic bomb. If he had lived, he'd be 97. I doubt there are as many as 1% of the veterans still alive.
DeleteWWII is certainly fading, and Gulf War 1 is already 33 years old.
ReplyDeleteYep. Vietnam has faded to just about nothing.
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