World War II wartime poster urging water conservation (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
On December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a massive surprise attack on the United States Navy base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The attack was designed to cripple the US Pacific Fleet and make it so America could not wage war against Japan and would be more willing to grant Japan favorable terms in the ongoing negotiations. Imperial Japanese leadership made multiple miscalculations. The more pragmatic was that the aircraft carriers were out to sea and thusly not at Pearl Harbor to be attacked.
The larger miscalculation was that Japan underestimated the capabilities of the United States to devote resources towards repairing the damage and winning the war. America would willingly make sacrifices on the home front in the coming years to finish the war Japan dragged America into. That’s not to mention that America was able to return the majority of the ships struck during Japan’s attack to service by the end of the war. Only the USS Utah, which was in use as a training ship, and the USS Arizona remained on the floor of Pearl Harbor by the time the war ended. The loss of the Arizona became a common rallying cry for Americans fighting in the Pacific, and the Arizona Memorial was constructed in 1962 as a solemn place to pay tribute to the Americans who died on board the boat. In the years since, survivors of the attack have been allowed to request their remains be laid to rest on board alongside their fallen brothers
Immediately following America’s entry into the war, the citizens at home shifted their entire focus to the war effort. American manufacturing had been participating in an arms buildup for a while, providing equipment to the British and Soviets under the Lend-Lease Act. The official declaration of war against the Empire of Japan, and the subsequent declaration of war against the United States by Nazi Germany spurred the American government to shift the nation’s entire economy to supporting the war effort. Car factories built tanks, machine shops produced pistols, textiles were used to make uniforms and parachutes, and resources such as food and oil were redirected to support the troops and the immense needs of the United States Military.
American war production carried the war, and the production happened on the backs of the American people. The Lend-Lease equipment provided to the Allies kept them in the fight. The saying goes, “The war was won with British intelligence, Russian blood, and American steel.” The trucks, tanks, ships, planes, and other equipment built in America and sent overseas kept the British Empire and the Soviet Union in the fight, while Hitler’s Germany stood alone. When America joined the war proper, this production had to expand dramatically to support the Allies as well as supplying America’s own war effort. Such dramatic ideas as Liberty Ships. The Liberty Ships were a fleet of cargo ships built in short timeframes to transport the massive amounts of supplies being sent overseas and replace ships lost to attrition. Eighteen shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945, coming out to an average of three ships every two days. Similar numbers would be found for airplanes of all different kinds, as well as tanks. That’s not to mention the millions of firearms produced for the troops on the frontlines. In essence, the United States had to support two armies, the Army operating in the European Theatre, and the Marines operating in the Pacific Theatre, as well as the Navy supporting operations in both. This includes the aviation component of the war, because the Navy had its own aviation component while the Air Force was technically part of the Army until 1947. All in all, this was a massive undertaking for the United States, a manufacturing miracle, and yet the citizens of the nation did their duty as citizens to pull it off.
Americans were asked to sacrifice to facilitate this massive retooling of the economy. Scrap metal drives were organized to help alleviate shortages in materials created by the production of so much of the aforementioned wartime equipment. People were encouraged to create Victory Gardens to grow whatever food they could because much of what was intended for grocery stores had to be sent overseas to feed the fighting men of the United States military. It was seen as unpatriotic to complain about such efforts and the population sacrificed willingly to support the efforts of the nation as a whole.
During the World Wars, wartime rationing was put into place. Food, materials, other supplies needed to support the war effort were prioritized and the people at home were told to make do. Initiatives such as carpooling to deal with fuel rationing, planting Victory Gardens to save valuable produce for the troops, and those infamous “Loose lips sink ships” propaganda posters reminding people to be careful when speaking to strangers about topics which might give away information about the war effort were all part of the campaign to get Americans focused on helping the nation as a whole. Political parties did not matter, there was a sense that everyone was sacrificing to achieve success for America.
One of the COVID-19 pandemic’s most frightening revelations about American society in the years since the end of the war is the complete and total death of that sense of civic responsibility in the country. At a time when the nation needed to be united and make sacrifices for everyone’s collective good, everyone spat in the face of restrictions. Throughout the duration of the extreme period of lockdowns, social media was filled with examples of people who wanted life to continue on as normal during unprecedented circumstances. Simple requests such as asking people to stay home or socially distance and wear masks to cut down on transmission of the virus were met with scorn, derision, mockery, and refusal from utter spite. The highest government officials were offering unqualified opinions which contradicted the experts and encouraging their supporters to not follow sound scientific and medical advice simply because the opposition was also in support of following science and listening to the experts.
As a result of the immense war efforts, marginalized populations began getting recognition for their efforts. Rosie the Riveter became emblematic of all the women who went to work in the factories who were vital to the war efforts. The increased role of women in the workplace would lay the groundwork for the second-wave feminism of the 1960s and 70s. In a similar way, the efforts of African Americans would lead to Harry Truman signing Executive Order 9981 in 1948, to integrate the armed forces
[Fun fact: the Pentagon has twice as many bathrooms as it needs because of racial segregation laws, although segregation practices were overturned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt before the building was officially dedicated.]
Despite America’s racial and gender discrimination to those returning from the battlefields or who stayed behind to do the jobs that the men going off to fight couldn’t, the gains that marginalized Americans made during the war years would become the foundation for the pushes for equal rights in the decades afterwards. While progress has continued into the modern era and life is significantly better than it was during and after the war, there is still a great deal of work left to be done. This progress makes it all the more abhorrent that the nation got closer to a position where asking more sacrifice of its disadvantaged populations was justifiable, and instead of attempting to ask of everyone to protect everyone during the pandemic (including those vulnerable populations), the country turned its back on them because it wanted to go to the movies and pretend like 3,000 people weren’t dying of the disease every day.
The conservative movement since the 1970s has hijacked patriotism and turned it into the nationalism that was practiced by the Nazis and kicked off a world war which left millions dead on all sides, including the eleven million Holocaust victims. At the same time, it embraced an anti-intellectual agenda which prioritized keeping its supporters stupid and angry to score cheap political points and be easier to influence rather than making the hard decisions to do what was right for America. The left’s bumbling ineptitude and the right’s calculated malice made fertile ground for anti-establishment sentiments to set in no matter where someone falls on the political spectrum. In the eyes of a large section of the population, the government is either wholly corrupt or liars or completely ineffective and stupid. As a result, when the government asked of its citizens during a time of crisis, the citizens said, “Why bother?”
During Covid, the measures recommended by the CDC such as masking and social distancing were effective in curbing the virus. While perhaps not as effective as initially believed, these measures were implemented to try and tackle an unprecedented problem at the very least. Science is based on estimated guesses at its best and is inexact. Every theory can find evidence to prove or disprove, and science is about finding the largest common trends between repeated studies to gather conclusions. At the time, the CDC requested masking and social distancing because the experts believed it could help and needed to try it on a large scale and observe. The vaccine was also effective in curbing the virus, but distrust of it as stoked by the President at the time led to lower adoption rates, thusly, lower success rates.
This circles back to that death of civic responsibility. Vast portions of the population believed unqualified individuals over scientific and medical experts. Part of the civic responsibility is to trust the experts placed in positions of authority, and Covid was no different. Only instead of trusting the experts, as America did in wartime, the nation believed those with common sense were lying to further the political goals of the opposition and refused to follow their recommendations. It is another sad indictment of the tribalism which has so thoroughly marred America. Where wedge issues became the norm for winning elections and decades of demonizing the other side meant that when faced with a massive, unprecedented challenge, America balked. The sense of unity had been obliterated which was encouraged by the highest authority in the nation. If America were to be faced with an existential threat today, there is very little chance the country would unite in the ways it needs to, and an equally small chance that the leadership will be capable and honorable enough to conduct themselves the way wartime leadership did to guide the nation to victory.
The current FBI Director’s recent snorkeling trip to the Arizona memorial summarizes the problems with the American government and society today in one succinct, abhorrent incident. A war grave was desecrated by a well-connected government individual for their own enjoyment without respect for anything else. The Director took this trip on the taxpayer’s dime to have a tourist experience at the site which is explicitly a solemn memorial to the sailors who died at that very site. It should be a unifying experience for all Americans to thoroughly condemn this. It’s the same as having a frivolous garden party at Arlington National Cemetery, steps from the eternal flame. There is a place for frivolity and fun, it is not on the gravesite of people who, whether volunteers or draftees, gave their lives for this country.
John F. Kennedy’s famous quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country,” has been replaced with people expecting the country to do for them. The social contract between government and citizens has been so thoroughly shattered that both act and think independent of each other. The people believe that they do not have a say in their government and the government does not act as the executor of the will of the people. The end result is a conflict which will only serve to weaken the United States, and it isn’t wholly without merit. In World War II days, the citizens were willing to sacrifice and support the war effort because President Roosevelt’s administration used every trick in its hat to pull the country out of the Great Depression. The government created Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, and other entities to protect the citizens and support the economy returning to previous form as part of the New Deal. It was one of the largest transformations of the American Government and its role in society until Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society reforms of the 1960s. The New Deal abated many of the worst symptoms of the Great Depression but it didn’t solve everything. The economy didn’t fully rebound until the outbreak of World War II in 1939 when the nation’s economy switched to preparing for the war which America would then join in late 1941. Still, the New Deal showed that Roosevelt was trying to do for the people as best he could, and in return, the people were willing to sacrifice for their government when Roosevelt asked.
Over the last several decades, the death of civic responsibility has come as the nation refuses to do for its people. Wages have gone up at a much lower proportional rate to the cost of living, and jobs are becoming harder to come by. The federal government isn’t enforcing rules on businesses anymore, and much of the economic inequality which permeated society in the decades leading up to the Great Depression has returned without any sign of relief. That’s in addition to the deliberate conflict being stoked by members of the government to gain or retain their power. The best solution to this problem is for the American people to start doing more for their country. Taking part in civic duties such as voting, and voting responsibly. Throw out politicians who do not vote for the people’s best interests in concrete ways. Citizens must be careful not to fall for honeyed words promising vague better social change, and support the leaders who can and will deliver on concrete goals for them, not just for the ruling percentages. Elect leaders who will make the government take care of its citizens and fulfill its end of the social contract.
The people have a voice, and must choose to use it.
Ark of the Lost Angels 
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