I turn 73 in a couple of weeks and grew up in an era of many Americans knowing directly what it was like to be in a war in other places. Europeans and others, however, would frequently mention that Americans had no knowledge of what it was like to live through a war and held that as a serious talking point that we had no idea of the horrors of it. European writers would bemoan warlike Americans just not understanding the danger. When we visited there we would be solemnly informed of the battles that took place, and people who had been in them or lived through bombings would be trotted out as prizes to lecture the stupid Americans.
I have a brother-in-law in his late 80s who remembers being able to distinguish which side's bombers were coming in the Paris suburb he grew up in late in the war. My best friend in the 80s was the son of a man who had been in the Hitler Youth, was drafted at 17 and sent to the Russian Front, was immediately captured and sent to Siberia. One could still meet such people then.
It is entirely fair that they had a point in saying Americans just didn't get how bad this could be. Most of us hadn't the least clue.
European writers and even people on the street still talk that way. I grant that there is something different about looking at the river running through your town and knowing "This was the boundary between the Nazis and the Allies during the war," with buildings and even damage still visible. But it is entirely a pose at this point. There are many more Americans than Western Europeans especially who know what war looks like up close now. One could say that this is our own damn fault, but it is still a core fact. Scandinavians, Spaniards, Austrians, and Belgians are now the ones who know nothing directly. Terrorism they sometimes know.
They don't know what it is like to be fired on and have armies of occupation patrolling the streets, whether on their side or the other guy's, so they imagine that what they do have is almost the same thing.
It is not only the American military. American missionaries and businessmen have also seen war around the globe. Portugal sent out both 500 years ago but nowadays, not so much. America has a lot of immigrants who have seen war elsewhere. Fewer illusions.
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A point we used to make often during the Iraq War days was that only around 1% of Americas were serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. 40% of the volunteer military comes from the American South, so outside of the South the figure is well below 1%.
One hears a very great deal of confident commentary from people who haven't the faintest idea what they are talking about.
If you add up Vietnam, various Yugoslavian, Middle eastern, and African deployments, plus people from those countries who came here, plus the missionaries and business people I am thinking you probably get to about 5%, which is more than Europeans, even including the British. Small in terms of our population, but large in terms of many developed countries.
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