What does The Longest Day really tell us?

After the last post, it occurred to me that these movies have more to tell us about the early 1960s.  Specifically, two points come to mind.  Here’s the first:

The Longest Day is, of course, a classic war movie – action, heroes, sacrifice, patriotism, etc.  But unless you think about those themes in the context of the fifty years that followed, you will miss something.  The counterpoint is, of course, the Vietnam War and its aftermath. 

 

America was proud of its role in World War II.  Patriotism was not a cliché but a fact.  Playing “The Star Spangled Banner” could actually stop riots among competing fans at sporting events.  Americans watching The Longest Day saw patriotism, felt patriotism, and were proud of their men (and women) who fought.  They believed that war, while tragic, was sometimes necessary to preserve a great way of life.  

Within ten years of The Longest Day, however, the country had lived through the Vietnam War, in which more than 58,000 Americans were killed, and a great many more were physically or psychologically wounded.   The country saw the ugly side of war – not a new thing but now revealed, in real time, by a press which had thrown off the restraint they had exercised in prior wars.  Most importantly, perhaps, for this point, Americans not only turned against the war but, perhaps for the first time, they turned against the soldiers.  Suddenly, the gratitude, pride and adoration shown to prior veterans were replaced with apathy and even hostility and scorn.

Now let’s jump ahead to three events.  Between 1989 and 1991, the disintegration of the Soviet Union meant the end of the Cold War.  Suddenly, it was possible to understand that the Vietnam War may have had a point after all.  Then, in 1991, the United States lead a multinational coalition in the First Gulf War – what Teddy Roosevelt would certainly have described as a “bully little war”.   It was a resounding military victory in aid of an underdog Kuwait against the evil oppressor Iraq.  Then, of course, the World Trade Centers were attacked on September 11, 2001, which undoubtedly will be remembered as the Pearly Harbor of that generation. 

Since the late 1980s, patriotism has now been reborn (or taken out of the closet and polished up).  At sporting events today, we routinely honor armed service personnel.  We stop them in the street and thank them.  We are, once again, proud of them.  It is almost, but perhaps not exactly, like the feelings Americans had in 1962 for their World War II veterans.  I say “almost” because, it seems to me, there is the tiniest hint of shame in today’s pride and respect -  shame for the way we treated the veterans of the Vietnam War.  If you listen carefully, you can get the sense that we are trying just a little harder to do the right thing, because we did such a disservice to those equally brave and worthy veterans thirty years ago. 

Hopefully, this little digression into amateur psychology will help you understand how The Longest Day reflects a significant trend of thought and emotion in the early 1960s.