Best War Ever
“World War II and the Depression are now nearly as far back as we can go in living memory, and so the loom large in our active folk story. And many who lived then were too young to understand it in its depth; they remember only that the war was a great victory” (Adams 115).
In Michael C.C. Adams’ The Best War Ever America and World War II, the author explains and clarifies the truth about the many myths in and about the war. There are many reasons as to why the war was seen as something positive and as a “good” thing for our nation. Motives such as the media and Hollywood’s glamorization of the war, economic growth within the nation after the Great Depression, and government agenda all had part in this crazy misconception we all know as “The Good War”. Even to this day, the war and life in America during the war is known as a problem free time of unity. In this paper I am going to depict a few of the myths unveiled in Adams’ book and analyze them and find ways in which they are connected to each other.
“World War II began when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939” (Adams 43). What we have been taught about WWII was that it was the golden age where the people all came together to help fight the war and made each other their top priority. It was a time when the US army was allegedly the strongest but in a sense most moral out of any army front in the world. Our strength and weapons outlasted and outshone causing for a glorious victory with very few deaths. On page 74 of The Best War Ever, it implied that as a civilian, if you purchased a war bond, your sacrifice was equivalent to that of a man serving overseas (Adams 74). The government made sure to advertise in a sense that gave someone with purchasing power a sense of patriotism. If the idea of someone dying on the front ever arose, it wouldn’t be in a bloody, drawn out horrible death. American soldiers died honorably, in a fast, clean, ‘famous last word’ kind of way. American citizens did not have to
In Michael C.C. Adams’ The Best War Ever America and World War II, the author explains and clarifies the truth about the many myths in and about the war. There are many reasons as to why the war was seen as something positive and as a “good” thing for our nation. Motives such as the media and Hollywood’s glamorization of the war, economic growth within the nation after the Great Depression, and government agenda all had part in this crazy misconception we all know as “The Good War”. Even to this day, the war and life in America during the war is known as a problem free time of unity. In this paper I am going to depict a few of the myths unveiled in Adams’ book and analyze them and find ways in which they are connected to each other.
“World War II began when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939” (Adams 43). What we have been taught about WWII was that it was the golden age where the people all came together to help fight the war and made each other their top priority. It was a time when the US army was allegedly the strongest but in a sense most moral out of any army front in the world. Our strength and weapons outlasted and outshone causing for a glorious victory with very few deaths. On page 74 of The Best War Ever, it implied that as a civilian, if you purchased a war bond, your sacrifice was equivalent to that of a man serving overseas (Adams 74). The government made sure to advertise in a sense that gave someone with purchasing power a sense of patriotism. If the idea of someone dying on the front ever arose, it wouldn’t be in a bloody, drawn out horrible death. American soldiers died honorably, in a fast, clean, ‘famous last word’ kind of way. American citizens did not have to