by My parent’s generation had the attack on Pearl Harbor while the tail end of Gen X and the early millennials had 9-11. Boomers like myself and the rest of Gen X never had a singular attack on our country that caused us to rush to recruiting stations to enlist.
It is not like we didn’t have wars like the Vietnam War or the first Gulf War. We had incidents like the Cuban Missile Crisis and Iranian Hostage Crisis. But it was the Cold War for the most part and attacks and conflict were elsewhere. After Pearl Harbor we vowed never to be taken by surprise again until we were in 9-11. However, it was a group of non-state actors who perpetrated that attack while we were looking elsewhere. That finally taught us that evil and attacks could come from any direction.
I’m glad we never had another attack like Pearl Harbor. I do wish we as a country could be as united as we were back then but the world is a different and less innocent place now. In a world dominated by mass communication, whether over the airwaves or the Internet, the posters below seem almost naive. Unfortunately.
Finally, remembering Doris “Dorie” Miller, the Complementary Spouse and I visited the Doris Miller Memorial in Waco, Texas last October. It lies in a park along the Brazos River.
My parents were 13 and 11 on December 7th and had clear memories for where they were when they heard about it. We’ll be telling our grandkids about 9/11 in the same way.
You are correct about us telling our grandkids about it.
My mom and dad were both 22 at the time. My Uncle John who was 19 and in his freshman year of college skipped school on Dec. 8th along with some friends to enlist in the Navy. Instead of being sent to the Pacific, he was sent to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. It was a mere ferry ride away from the family home in Staten Island! He did end up on the USS Bennington towards the end of the war as an electronics technician.