OT: D-Day ???'s

[WhyNotaSooner]

I was born 13 yrs after D-Day. Relatively a short span of time. Looking back, my grandson was born 13 yrs after 9-11. Again, relatively a short span of time. It's amazing to me the difference between the two in terms of remembrance and memorializing. Throughout time, there have been many movies and documentaries referencing D-Day. Nothing jumps out to me regarding 9-11. I recognize that I need to be open minded, but am I wrong to believe that I feel it's my responsibility to make sure my grandson knows about 9-11, how it happened and how it has changed our lives since it occurred? And if so, how do I go about doing this?

Surely I can't be in this boat by myself.

 

[iasooner1]

K your son served in the desert, right ? I'm sure he can add some input & perspective on this as well.

 

[CTOkie]

I was born 13 yrs after D-Day. Relatively a short span of time. Looking back, my grandson was born 13 yrs after 9-11. Again, relatively a short span of time. It's amazing to me the difference between the two in terms of remembrance and memorializing. Throughout time, there have been many movies and documentaries referencing D-Day. Nothing jumps out to me regarding 9-11. I recognize that I need to be open minded, but am I wrong to believe that I feel it's my responsibility to make sure my grandson knows about 9-11, how it happened and how it has changed our lives since it occurred? And if so, how do I go about doing this?

Surely I can't be in this boat by myself.

Do what my dad did. He took me to historical places: Civil War battlefields, Bunker Hill, Washington DC, Arlington Cemetery, the Smithsonian Museum, Mount Vernon, The Alamo, Independence Hall in Philadelphia and other places. He made history interesting to me and made sure I appreciated and understood it.
I would think if you keep your children away from being buried in video games and iPhones and the crap on network television, it will enable them to be curious about history and how it has impacted our world today....and how we never seem to learn from it.

 

[OUSOONER67]

It was easy for me to get interested in anything to do with America's Independence to the Civil War and beyond as I have had a love of history going back as far as I can remember and not just about Wars but History in general and War as bad as it is was and is continues to be a thing humans cannot avoid. I guess for me as an American boy growing up it was fun watching all the old war movies and even some of the actors actually served and some were even heroes of WW2 so it was very interesting to me. As a child back then and to this day I consider the generation that fought in WW2 to be the greatest in American History, just my opinion. It was a time when the Nation pulled together and there was a great National Pride and a Can Do Attitude. I am only 50 yrs old so I was not around to witness that but the closest thing I can think of how it was like is when 9/11 happened. Complete strangers of all walks of life would just come up to you like they had known you your whole life and start talking to you about it. American Flags were everywhere and on everything and you could see how in a time of crisis that Americans can become one and put our differences aside, but since that dreadful time after 9/11 it seems to have vanished, pride and love of Country seem to be a thing of the past perhaps until the next big disaster wakes us up again and makes us realize we are all Americans and for a short while we will forget our differences if only for a while.
Not really hard to explain the differences between Nazis and Radical Islamists and what they stand for, they are very similar in their view of themselves and their agenda, World Domination and Hate.

 

[CTOkie]

It IS hard to explain the similarity of the Nazi swastika to the Confederate battle flag....and the trivializing of 300,000 Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.

 

[CTOkie]

It was easy for me to get interested in anything to do with America's Independence to the Civil War and beyond as I have had a love of history going back as far as I can remember and not just about Wars but History in general and War as bad as it is was and is continues to be a thing humans cannot avoid. I guess for me as an American boy growing up it was fun watching all the old war movies and even some of the actors actually served and some were even heroes of WW2 so it was very interesting to me. As a child back then and to this day I consider the generation that fought in WW2 to be the greatest in American History, just my opinion. It was a time when the Nation pulled together and there was a great National Pride and a Can Do Attitude. I am only 50 yrs old so I was not around to witness that but the closest thing I can think of how it was like is when 9/11 happened. Complete strangers of all walks of life would just come up to you like they had known you your whole life and start talking to you about it. American Flags were everywhere and on everything and you could see how in a time of crisis that Americans can become one and put our differences aside, but since that dreadful time after 9/11 it seems to have vanished, pride and love of Country seem to be a thing of the past perhaps until the next big disaster wakes us up again and makes us realize we are all Americans and for a short while we will forget our differences if only for a while.
Not really hard to explain the differences between Nazis and Radical Islamists and what they stand for, they are very similar in their view of themselves and their agenda, World Domination and Hate.

I believe the decade of the 1960's pulled the rug out from under the collective national pride and "can do" attitude that followed WWII and the peaceful (relatively speaking) and prosperous decade of the 1950's.
In the 1960's, our country had a president, a civil rights leader and a presidential candidate assassinated, a divisive and reckless, ill-conceived war that tore the country apart and cost the lives of 58,000 Americans, a drug culture that came to rise and was glamorized and glorified by Hollywood, rampant turmoil, a decadent and hedonistic event at Woodstock that was/is regarded as the ground breaking "cultural" event of my generation...and then the Watergate scandal in the early 1970's seemingly made Americans distrustful and cynical of their political leaders forever. All of this has put us where we are today: a divided country in so many ways with a government that operates not for the good of its citizenry, by sociopathic politicians who perpetuate the nanny state decree of the JFK-LBJ era and who keep getting us into reckless military conflicts under the premise of "defending our freedoms".
At 68, I have to wonder what the future holds for the youth of this country.
As for teaching younger generations about history, rather than try to change or cover up reminders of our history, why not simply LEARN from these reminders by leaving them intact ?