We pretty much deserve each other

Matt Pearl

This year, 2016, marks the 75th anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War II in 1941.

I would imagine that the local impact of the largest global conflict in the history of our race will make its way into ‘back files’ for newspapers that reprint significant stories from days past.

For a great many of us today who were born in the postwar years, we can only imagine the world of World War II. I’ve seen movies, read books, and heard my Grandfather Pearl’s first-hand accounts of his service in the conflict. Thanks to recollections by other grandparents, I have been informed about what life back home was during that time.

My conclusion: the world was in tatters, and the nation was united.

Many times during my adult life, particularly since the start of my writing this column and the accompanying attention to the national headlines, politics, economics, etc., I have found myself dismayed by the lack of unity our nation has shown.

I would never wish for a global conflict. I do wish we could see the unity of purpose and common desire to stand together that wartime seems to bring. If only we as a race — or at least, as a nation — could learn to lock our arms tightly during peacetime as if a conflict were raging, our lives would be greatly improved.

But nothing brings people together like crisis — real crisis, not the argumentative, politicized mumbo-jumbo that we have heard in the debates. I’m talking about a situation where people must either stand together or face destruction, where our common love of home and country become critical to our survival.

We can argue the philosophies of freedom, of enlightenment, of equality, and any other idealistic pursuit y imaginable. In a time of relative peace and prosperity, we have the luxury of thinking about ourselves to our heart’s content.

When life becomes about our collective survival, however, Americans tend to pull their neighbors close, realizing for brilliant moments of our history that we do not stand alone.

My generation’s crisis moment came on 9/11, and I remember well my new feelings of connectedness with New York City and Washington D.C. Never before, and rarely since, have I felt much of a bond with the great cities of this nation, where people seem so different from us in rural mid-America.

And for a couple of weeks, nobody cared who was a Democrat and who was a Republican. All the divisions we see daily in our American experience seemed to be erased when our nation faced a foreign threat to our security, and we joined together and faced the foe in a united front.

Then a month or two passed, and we began to disagree with one another about who the enemy was.

Should we blame this country, or this sect, or this organization, or the president, or the last president, etc.?

As soon as we began to feel safe in our own country again, we started the bickering, political chaos that 911 has silenced for a season.

Again, none of us hopes for crisis. But how refreshing it would be if now, in a time of peace, Americans would find ways to stand together for a common, constructive purpose.

This will never be, though: who would get to decide which purpose would be our focus? Before we had the chance to begin the work before us, our bickering and squabbles would put the whole project on hold. In the end, I suppose we all pretty much deserve each other.