Contrasting Pearl Harbor and 9/11

Where were you on 9/11? And what about Dec. 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed? Both were periods of infamy and a threat to America's freedom.

Leadership on each of those days was very different. In 1941, our president called for the American people to sacrifice. In 2001, our president told us to go shopping. How did we get such opposite responses on days when America was attacked on her own soil? What does it say about today's generation and its leadership?

After Pearl Harbor, our president informed us of the dangerous and hard times we would be facing in the days to come. Many recalled his earlier words of encouragement, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."

While candid, he also gave us hope that through sacrifice and working together we would secure our freedom and a better future. He then laid out the sacrifices he was asking us to make that would bring us together and made all Americans feel they had a duty to perform and were contributing to the welfare of our nation. Men and women from that era became known as the greatest generation.

The day after, men lined up to volunteer to serve in the armed services. All Americans rushed to share in the sacrifice and collected aluminum cans; coffee and sugar were rationed, gas was rationed, and, depending on the sticker you received, you could only fill the gas tank on certain days.

Women were asked to give up their nylon stockings to make parachutes. To help finance the war, our nation embarked in a war bond and stamp-buying program. As men went to war, women went to work to support the war at home, some at the Remington War Plant located on Redwood Road and 2100 South where they packaged arms and munitions.

That was then.

After 9/11, our president told us to go shopping and encouraged us to go about our lives. As a nation, we were not asked to make any sacrifices. A few people seem concerned about what the events might do to the price of gas. Our president declared war on terrorism. Since mandatory draft to serve in the armed services had ended, military service was voluntary, and some young people felt no obligation to serve their country.

They were the children of the boomer generation whose parents wanted the best for them, and many did not know what it was like to want or to sacrifice. They grew up with a sense of entitlement and believed people were in need because of poor choices they had made.