U.S. History

I've been a bit hesitant to post about this on my blog up to this point. But then I figured, hey...it's my blog. I can post my opinions. After all...I've never cared before whether people agree with me or not. Why should this be any different? Maybe I'm just finally beginning to get a bit more comfortable in the blogosphere.

Some of you know that I'm currently working on finishing my Bachelor's Degree. I met my husband in college and married him after I dropped out. No, I didn't drop out to get married...I was burned out and would have quit anyway. But that's beside the point. I'm currently working on getting my degree in Health Administration online with University of Phoenix. I started this in October 2004 while P. was in Iraq. As long as I stay on schedule as it is right now, I'll be finished this October. Thank goodness for technology and distance education. I can't imagine trying to do this the "traditional" way with the way we move all the time. I'd probably never get finished.

Back to the point. My last two classes have been in U.S. History. Yes, technically I'm a Senior, but I had some elective credits I had to complete. I chose to do those electives in U.S. History. Interesting choice considering I HATED the subject in high school, right? Well, I'm married to a history buff. And over the years I have come to appreciate just how important our history is to us. Not to mention how personal it became for me when I visited Normandy. The kids and I went twice. Talk about amazing!

My previous class covered the period from 1865-1945, and my current class covers the period after 1945. I'm getting to the reason that I'm blogging about this now, I promise.

I've heard people refer to Iraq as our generation's Vietnam. In studying U.S. History for the past few weeks, I can see some similarities between the two.

But honestly, I was surprised at the similarities I saw between the Iraq War and WWII, at least regarding U.S. involvement.

So why do I feel this way? First of all, we were attacked first in both instances. I don't have to elaborate anymore here. But in studying the events of WWII, something struck me. Japan attacked us, right? Not Germany, not Italy...Japan. Yet when the U.S. entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt wanted to go into Europe first. And the American public didn't understand why then. After all...Japan had attacked us; we should retaliate, right? So, what reason did we have to invade Europe? Well, because there was an alliance between Japan, Germany, and Italy - the Axis Powers.

Today we're at war in Iraq. The American public understood why we went into Afghanistan. After all, Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks, and that's where we need to find him, right? But then when we invaded Iraq everybody wants to know why. Hmmmm, well, if I remember correctly, Saddam Hussein publicly praised the attacks on us. He vowed to support further attacks, particularly monetarily. There may not be a formal, written alliance here, but it's an alliance nonetheless.

The biggest difference as I see it? We didn't have U.N. approval. Well, is that really a difference, though? After all, the U.N. didn't even exist until January 1942. If there had been a U.N. when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, what would the result have been?

I've heard September 11, 2001, referred to as our generation's Pearl Harbor.

Just something to think about.