The Myths of World War II

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/13/3139/

The Myths of World War II
by Sean Gonsalves

Back in April, the Library of Congress Veterans History Project and the Public Broadcasting Service announced a collaborative initiative to collect war stories, which will include Ken Burns’ new film, The War, slated to air on September 23.

Given Burns’ masterful look back on the two best cultural gifts America has ever given the world — jazz and baseball — I’m looking forward to his soon-to-be-released documentary.

But when I checked the Veterans History Project home page, I got a little worried when I read: “Throughout 2007, PBS stations all over the country will be initiating outreach programs designed to raise awareness of World War II and the need for its veterans and civilian workers to tell their stories for the record.”

Raise awareness of World War II? How could anyone in America who hasn’t been in a coma since Tom Brokaw coined the term “Greatest Generation” not be aware of World War II?

Given the huge success and popularity of WWII movies like Saving Private Ryan and all of the World War II dominated national commemorations (Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Pearl Harbor Day etc.), how much more aware can people be?

Indeed, it’s important for “veterans and civilian workers to tell their stories for the record” - honest stories; not tales that perpetuate a war mythology that has blinded U.S. war planners ever since we won the “Good War.”

One soldier’s story I hope is represented in Burns’ project is the kind offered by WWII vet Edward W. Wood Jr. in a book called Worshipping the Myths of World War II: Reflections on America’s Dedication to War.

It’s not too late to add it to your summer reading list - and not just for history’s sake but for the insight it provides into our present conflaguration.

“The philosophy of the way to fight terrorism or to halt rogue states from possessing the atomic bomb rests squarely on the four Myths of World War II,” Wood writes, sure to raise the hackles of those who consider the prevailing mythology as sacred.

Wood’s four myths: 1) The Good War. 2) The Greatest Generation. 3) We Won World War II Largely on Our Own. And 4), When Evil Lies in Others, War Is the Means to Justice.”

The Good War myth is exposed as such by the historical record, testifying of the mass killing of innocents. What’s good about that? A necessary war, perhaps. But “good?” That’s sick.

The Greatest Generation myth is disproved, Wood argues, in considering that the same generation who defeated Nazi and Japanese imperialism “also helped defeat the hope for peace that swept the world at the end of World War II,” largely through the telling of “heroic” stories while staying relatively silent about war’s dark side, setting up future generations to experience similar horrors.

“The story told in the mainline media explains why it was so easy for America to accept the idea of a ‘war on terror.’ Once again, we would storm the beaches of Normandy…(and) bomb the people of Japan. Our policies of preemption, our war with Iraq are rooted in a war now sixty years past. By believing the Myths of World War II as the truth of war we have but created another monstrosity, resembling our failure in Vietnam, another war that will only cripple those who fight it, harm our armed forces, erode our reputation throughout the world, and, this time, turn much of the world against us.”

The We Won the War Largely on Our Own myth is much easier to lay bare when you consider the huge contributions of money and blood made by Russia and China.

And finally, there’s Wood’s When Evil Lies in Others, War Is the Means to Justice myth. That’s probably the most difficult myth to pierce, Wood acknowledges. Whether his argument questioning the way we think about “enemies” and international cooperation are ultimately convincing is in direct correlation with how familiar (and honest) the reader is with American history and its intimate relationship to “war and atrocities” - the “gray area” beyond we‘re-the-good-guys-and-they‘re-the-bad-guys.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to have an honest discussion about World War II, without all the myths? Come on, Ken. I’m counting on you. But, if we can’t get it from Burns and PBS, there’s always veterans like Wood, not so much interested in the myths but in the God’s-honest-truth.

Syndicated columnist Sean Gonsalves is an assistant news editor with the Cape Cod Times. He can be reached at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/13/3139/

Tom Brokaw, first class corporate tool and fatuous ass.

couldn't finish it.
soon after i found Terkel's "the good war" and it was SOOOOO good. shame he picked a bad time to publish.

into power and oversaw the destruction of the system that had served them so very well, the New Deal.

They were the generation that climbed the ladder and then pulled it up after them so their children and grandchildren couldn't follow.

The unions, the New Deal, the GI loans, then the World War 2 generation thru it away. Gave everything back to the rich!

in her first job, sacking groceries for 75 cents an hour in 1945. Thing is, that would be almost 11 bucks an hour in today's money. Anyone know of a Wal-Mart paying that much for an entry-level kid these days? :shrug:

I first learned about the "Good War" from my mother who, as a child, fled Romania with her mother and ended up in an American camp for refugees. What happened to her and the other women and children in that camp was indefensible and unpardonable.

Americans are not the cowboys with the White hats. We are more than capable of committing despicable acts of cruelty and violence when given the chance.

There's a seldom discussed story about how German POW's were treated in certain European camps around the end of WW2.

Like, tens of thousands or more were STARVED TO DEATH while under American custody. This seemed like an act of retribution by the Americans.

A little known deal I only found out about because a colleague at my former company (German owned) told me about how his grandfather died.

War is hell! American's are fallible people just like the Germans were, I guess?

-85% jimmy

...in our hearts that we are exempt from history. That just because the rest of time & space is filled with repressive, amoral power elites, religions that exist to enslave their adherents, murder, rape, lies, famine, torture, genocide & massacres on every scale from global to personal, despite all that, most Americans seem to believe that, with us, it's different.

Many other countries don't seem to believe that. Europeans don't seem to, not as much as Americans. Maybe finally giving in to those all too universally human tastes for blood, violence, & mob rule personified in an alpha male, resulting in having two massive wars rage across your very own familiar town squares & backyard cabbage patches in less than forty years brings some measure of national maturity to the survivors. It certainly it brings firsthand knowledge that, yes, it _can_ happen here.

WWII was the last time a certain part of America's national character really got the chance to let loose & enjoy itself.

absolutely rabid supporters of Hitler, Mussolini and fascism, generally.

When, among his most vocal critics, Mussolini's grand-daughter berated Paul Gascoigne the footballer for belching when asked on camera by a TV reporter what he thought about a certain soccer team, no-one said to her, "But maybe young Mr Gascoigne's boorish act was not quite as reprehensible as that of your grandfather' thugs, as they forcibly poured multiple bottles of castor oil down the throats of old-age pensioners, who refused to support his political party.

Before the WWII, When Thatcher's Mr Law & Order, Lord Hailsham, the then Quintin Hogg, was standing for Parliament as the Conservative candidate for Oxford, his slogan was, "A vote for Hogg is a vote for Hitler".... And he won!

It was revealed in a book by the historian (called 'left-wing historian', of course, ever since), A J P Taylor, but you never read or heard of it from any other source. There was even one character, whose name, unfortunately I forget, who, once the war had started, even protested that we shouldn't bomb the armaments industries in the Ruhr... because they were private property!!!!!

The pre-war patrician imperial culture was arrogantly brutish. You couldn't say that of them after the war, but the strange thing is, I can't look upon today's Thatcherite Tories as brutish or arrogant, either, because, divorced of the ambient imperialist culture of their pre-war counterparts, they seem so cartoonishly light-weight and barmy.

On the other hand, Labour politician, Aneurin Bevan, one of the architects of our Welfare State in the UK, once commented to a colleague, "You realise we are educating these people to become Conservatives one day." Though I doubt if even he could have imagined that one day his own grandson would become the Conservative Government's Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales.

So much hidden history, there has even been a TV series of that name shown here.

We were on the right side of that one, and so much of the fighting done was from a defensive stance of our freinds, like we really were taking France back FOR the people of France, not ourselves. But so many people fixate on it like its the war itself that was glorious, instead of standing up for the morally right thing.

Did Tom Brokaw help start the current Iraq War? I think he helped enormously.

When I first heard the title, I thought it would be about the generation that stopped the greatest fascist threat to American liberties of the twentieth century. But instead of being about the anti-war movement of the '60 and '70, it was about the people in the '40s who helped the Russians defeat the Germans.

Thanks for this post.

I feel a lot better now.