Where were you on this day in 2001?

Like December 7, September 11 will always live in our memories. I distinctly remember the radio broadcast on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when I was four years old. And, of course, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, has never left my memory. But the periods after these days was very, very different.

World War II dominated the lives of Americans. Everybody was involved in the war. I saved aluminum foil. My sisters sewed for the troops. My brothers joined the Army; one volunteered, the other was drafted and, at age 18, earned a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge. My father joined the local Draft Board. My family was not alone in these activities, by any means. Just about everyone I knew or saw did something to help this country fight the war. We went to the grocery store with our ration books. Women became factory workers. Every day the front page of the newspapers told us what was going on in the war. We didn’t drive as much as we used to, we wanted to save gas.  Air raid drills occurred fairly often, as we lived on the coast. The men who did not go to war served as Air Raid Wardens. At school we practiced hiding under our desks should an air attack occur. We knew the names of most of the generals and admirals. Every so often we sent a large package to our cousins in Italy; the package contained food, clothing and other items to help them survive the attacks. Yes, some Americans protested the war, but there were very few ‘conscientious objectors’. We saw players from the Boston Red Sox (one of whom was Ted Williams) and the Boston Braves leave the ball field to serve in the military. When we went to the movie theater the first film shown every day was a newsreel about the war.

Our post-911 days pall in comparison. The only defensive incident that happened to me was a lengthy investigation at the Canadian border when I drove back to Canada the following weekend. That was the first and only investigation although I crossed the border subsequently quite often. Since we no longer have a draft, I knew hardly anyone who joined the military. The attack dominated the news for a relatively short while. Today, we seldom hear any news about Afghanistan – although we’ve been there for seventeen years. We’ve had a number of generals leading our forces there; the only one I can remember is Petraeus. Although we have failed to win a war since WWII, we seem to be doing little of value – other than spending trillions of dollars - to improve our capabilities.

What do the opposite post-attack experiences tell us about our country?