Letters Home

The last reading provided an excellent insight to the personal perspectives and experiences that occur during war as well as the social circumstances that were present at the time. For example, John Garcia's story describes how the Hawaiian was subjected to a battery of social imposition of beliefs when it came to race and religion. Upon joining the military, people began to ask him his race, which he said never happened in Hawaii. He was deemed to be white and was separated from the Hawaiians when he answered that he had some European ancestry. Moreover, he describes how the whites had told him not to speak to three Jews because they had killed Christ, to which Garcia replies "'It's my understanding he was killed about nineteen hundred years ago'" (Terkel 19-20). This is fascinating to me in that it is clear that even though individuals were fighting for the same side, they would segregate themselves into different, exclusive groups. In the face of intense Pacific Theater-combat, Americans were still isolating themselves. I found this form of patriotism different than the form that I saw after 9/11. People of all kinds were coming together, there was no "different" Americas, each with its own invested group; rather, all of the nation was united in mourning and righteous anger. In discussing patriotism, it is important that, since the nation as a whole is the subject of the phenomenon of patriotism, that the fragmentation or divisions within a nation be exposed to really determine its nature. Therefore, attention should be paid to the civil attitude of individuals at the time when one is discussing patriotism.
Furthermore, designed outward signs of patriotism seem to a degree pointless. Yes, they may improve the moral of soldiers and the general populace, but Garcia describes how "we've been practicing this show for two months[,]" when discussing all of the preparations that the soldiers had to take for General MacArthur and President Roosevelt (Terkel 20). This seems like a waste of manpower in a war, but when the war was so vast as World War II was, it may be necessary to show the leaders the strength of the people they are commanding. Overall, patriotism is a useful tool in war, but it is not always the tool used in war. A nation's capital (wealth and people) is what is used in combat, but in a war, shows of patriotism are necessary in order to keep the feeling and point of the war in perspective.

Terkel, Stud. The Good War. New York: Ballantine Books, 1984.