I’m on a war movie/ war series kick right now and am currently watching a ton of WW2 stuff.
Every youngish American male is excited to go fight for his country. In “The Pacific”, a character is unable to go fight due to a heart murmur and he cries about it.
Based on pop culture, it seems that pre-Vietnam, people were excited and honored to serve.
I know we were pissed off about Pearl Harbor, but if the terrorists or North Koreans blew up my hometown and my bank and my family and my favorite Starbucks, I’d still do anything and everything to avoid sleeping in the dirt, getting shot at, carrying heavy shit around, and seeing my friends die.
I’m assuming most young men in the 1940’s had fathers who’d fought in the First World War? I’m assuming they knew war was scary and awful?
Historically was war welcomed? Were men excited to go? Is our current era (at least in the west) a weird aberration in the grand scheme of things? What may have caused this shift? And could it swing back the other way?
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