How perspectives of World War II change
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Today marks the 75th anniversary of World War R's Victory in Europe. In commemoration, The Texarkana Gazette digital replica edition includes a 48-page special section remembering this histori-cal benchmark.) For older generations, World War II was the war. For younger gener-ations, not so much. It' s place in history is not so promi-nent in their hearts and minds. While today marks the
end of World War II in the European theater 75 years ago, the passing of time has left the event with a shrinking audience. Of the 16 million American men and women service members called into World War II only 2% — roughly 300,000 —are still alive.
While the past 75 years have produced an abundance of fact-based historical literature as well as pop culture films and television docudramas on the war, those same years have now produced more then three generations of Americans who see varying degrees of conflict’s worth. Their views are more ambivalent than those of preceding generations.
Earlier this week, Dr. Candy Stevens Smith, a government professor with Texarkana College, spoke about the how the passage of time seems to have distanced younger students, basically those designated as millennials (born between 1980 and mid-to-late 90s) from getting a full understanding of the tumult of that time.
“I think that now the war seems so far removed, it would to be hard for them to get perspective on what it was like and what it meant to people living through that time,” said Smith, whose dad served in Italy during World War II. “There is now part of what is known as Generation Z (those who were born from the mid-to-late-1990s to about 2012) who find it hard to relate to World War II, as well as to that kind of ‘Can Do Attitude’ that people had back then, something that stirred their hearts for the good of the whole.”
Smith, who has taught at TC since 1983, said because the college has had and continues to have a diverse age range among its students, the difference in generational views hasn’t been so glaring in her classes.
“Students here usually range in age from their 20s to their 70s, so we have had a pretty good tradition of attracting older students,” she said. “The younger students listen to the older students and the older students also listen to younger students, so there is a good exchange of information between the generations we have now.”
While the World War II generation faced the anxiety of economic poverty and war, Smith said today’s younger generations are more concerned about how rapidly growing technology will change their lives and career paths.
Still, Smith said, some students are fascinated by the new military technology, such as drone strikes deployed to deal with specific enemy leaders rather than against massively sized forces — such as those used in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf.