Of historical importance...

[Cruzer1]

I'm kind of a history buff, and I love old interactions such as this between President Kennedy and President Eisenhower. I was shocked that Kennedy referred to him as General, unless Ike had told him to call him that before this call...

 

[oblong]

After leaving office JFK restorer Ike’s army status.  That’s the cliffs notes version.  He did that to soothe the old man and butter him up.  It was his preferred title and especially at that moment in time JFK needed Ike’a support to convince the country. He’d have called him Master Ike the Supreme if that would have worked. 

[Motor City Sonics]

34 minutes ago, oblong said:

After leaving office JFK restorer Ike’s army status.  That’s the cliffs notes version.  He did that to soothe the old man and butter him up.  It was his preferred title and especially at that moment in time JFK needed Ike’a support to convince the country. He’d have called him Master Ike the Supreme if that would have worked. 

Ike served as President, but found a lot about politics to be silly and pointless, so he preferred General.   

[Motor City Sonics]

6 hours ago, Cruzer1 said:

I'm kind of a history buff, and I love old interactions such as this between President Kennedy and President Eisenhower. I was shocked that Kennedy referred to him as General, unless Ike had told him to call him that before this call...

 

First of all - very cool that this is recorded on an album..............that's how they recorded things

 

Secondly.   Could you imagine anyone having a meaningful conversation like that with Trump?    

[Jim Cowan]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

After leaving office JFK restorer Ike’s army status.  

I'm a bit confused by this.  In the United States, you get to keep your highest title, correct?  Ergo some people still call Rudy "Mayor Giuliani", and Hillary is still "Madame Secretary"?  If that is true, wouldn't Eisenhower be entitled to be called General if he wanted to be, regardless of his active status?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gehringer_2]

13 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I'm a bit confused by this.  In the United States, you get to keep your highest title, correct?  Ergo some people still call Rudy "Mayor Giuliani", and Hillary is still "Madame Secretary"?  If that is true, wouldn't Eisenhower be entitled to be called General if he wanted to be, regardless of his active status?

 

 

 

 

 

 

AFAIK, post duty titles in the US are nothing more than courtesies. They can be offered or ignored.

[oblong]

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-president-eisenhower-upon-signing-bill-restoring-his-military-rank
 

he was restored to “active duty”.  A technicality as he had no authority. Just an ego boosting ego thing. 

[gehringer_2]

Not many of them left.

 

[gehringer_2]

On 1/15/2023 at 2:55 AM, Cruzer1 said:

I'm kind of a history buff, and I love old interactions such as this between President Kennedy and President Eisenhower. I was shocked that Kennedy referred to him as General, unless Ike had told him to call him that before this call...

 

it's amusing how your time perception changes as you age yourself. When I was a child living through this, WWII seemed so far in the rear view mirror. Of course I knew my father and uncles had fought in it, but their parents' youths are always terra incognita to children.  This phone call was only 16 yrs from the end of WWII. I'm now close in age to what Ike was in 1960 and the 2 Iraq wars and 9/11 are as, or more distant in actual years to us today than WWII was in my life in 1960,  but of course to me those later events are part of my awreness of a 'present' history, just as 1940 would have been Ike then, and as those later conflicts must be part of an 'ancient' past to my children.

Edited May 1, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Biff Mayhem]

Off topic but here is my favorite interaction which Ike oversaw.

 

 

[oblong]

49 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

it's amusing how your time perception changes as you age yourself. When I was a child living through this, WWII seemed so far in the rear view mirror. Of course I knew my father and uncles had fought in it, but their parents' youths are always terra incognita to children.  This phone call was only 16 yrs from the end of WWII. I'm now close in age to what Ike was in 1960 and the 2 Iraq wars and 9/11 are as, or more distant in actual years to us today than WWII was in my life in 1960,  but of course to me those later events are part of my awreness of a 'present' history, just as 1940 would have been Ike then, and as those later conflicts must be part of an 'ancient' past to my children.

part of it is the transition from black and white to color.... I think.

I was born in '73. For me history was often judged that way. Looking through old photo albums it seemed like most anything before me was black and white and with me was color, give or take a few years.  Also with regard to 9/11.... it seems more current to us because we're still fighting "that war" in some regard, or we were until we left Aghanistan.  9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan are linked and were a 20 year incident.  Time runs together.

 

[chasfh]

In addition to our having lived it as adults, I also believe the current past of 20/30 or so years ago seems a lot closer than WWII did in 1960 because we have video of that era made available to us on demand, some of it in HD, while 1945 was not nearly so accessible to the people of 1960. In fact, I kind of wonder whether WWII feels closer to me now than it felt to me 30 years ago because so much of the account of that time (video, newspaper, etc.) is available to us now in a way the couldn't have been back then.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

In addition to our having lived it as adults, I also believe the current past of 20/30 or so years ago seems a lot closer than WWII did in 1960 because we have video of that era made available to us on demand, some of it in HD, while 1945 was not nearly so accessible to the people of 1960. In fact, I kind of wonder whether WWII feels closer to me now than it felt to me 30 years ago because so much of the account of that time (video, newspaper, etc.) is available to us now in a way the couldn't have been back then.

Could be, but the counterpoint to that is that Hollywood spent the 1st 20 yrs or so replaying the war in our theaters and the TV in a way unlike the more recent experience. You literally can't count the number of WWII films that were released beginning during the war and right through the 50's and into the 60's. Plus TV series like 'Combat', 12 OClock High, Rat Patrol, Black Sheep Squadron (into the 70's there) and even send ups like 'McHales Navy' and 'Hogan's Heroes'  For a couple of decades at least, you could never be very far from a WWII reference in the popular media. 

But certainly the *immediacy* of media our access to current history has completely changed. In WWII there were weekly newsreels and no lack of radio, newspaper and magazine reportage from the field - it was just a few days/weeks (at least!) old before it was seen/heard. But was very present . Maybe the big difference is as you note - the internet preserves it all - and in that sense it keeps it all present tense. So today you can easily pull up or run into something from 20 yrs ago (or facebook pulls it up for you). By 1966 there was no way for anyone but an ambitious researcher to access a MovieTone newsreel from WWII.

[oblong]

Once we hit 2020 I have to do mental gymnastics to figure out what year it was if someone throws out something like “37 years ago….”  
 

if you tell me 30 years ago I think 1979. Not…. Freaking college!!!

[VegasTiger]

49 minutes ago, oblong said:

Once we hit 2020 I have to do mental gymnastics to figure out what year it was if someone throws out something like “37 years ago….”  
 

if you tell me 30 years ago I think 1979. Not…. Freaking college!!!

It ain't gonna get better.

[Tiger337]

11 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Not many of them left.

 

My father is still hanging in there.  He was a front lines solder in WWII - Rapido River, Monte Cassino, etc.  he turns 99 this month.    

[Jim Cowan]

I was 5 years old in 1957 and WW2 seemed like yesterday, just because so many of the men who were at church every Sunday with their families had been there, including a tail gunner, and a guy with a prosthetic leg, and so much of programming like "The 20th Century" with Walter Cronkite was so focused on WW2.  And a few years later in 1962, playing baseball in an organized league, the league was sponsored by the Legion, I think that you guys call it the VFW.  And compared to today there was not much bullying in elementary school in the late 1950's and early 1960's but I can tell you this for sure, there was one kid at the school of recent immigrant German ancestry and he was bullied very severely.

So, I am here to say that in the 1950's, in my neighbourhood, the war was still immediate.  It was not a distant memory, not at all.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Jim Cowan said:

Legion, I think that you guys call it the VFW. 

I don't know what is left of either org, but post WWII, American Legion and the VFW were different orgs. Any vet could join the AL, VFW membership was only open to those that had served in overseas confict. I pretty much grew up in a VFW hall.

But going back the to my OP about the perception of time, I didn't mean to imply the in 1960  WWII seemed distant to my parents generation - I just meant the way time compresses as you age. When you and I were young in the 60's, 1945 seemed impossibly long ago to *us*, even though we were indeed surrounded by its echoes daily. In one sense it's a trivial thing to say since at 15 yrs old you don't have any 20 yr memories of your own. And I guess that is really the point I meant to make, which is that 20 yrs ago is a long time when you have to use someone else's memory to access it, but your in your *own* memories, the linearity of time can tend to disappear completely and 20 yrs in your own experience as an adult can have no sense of distance at all.

And the related idea that Chas brought up about whether the presistance of - or ability to  - access all history as a single flat database that the 'net provides changes how people experience that -- or not. 

Edited May 2, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Jim Cowan]

3 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't know what is left of either org, but post WWII, American Legion and the VFW were different orgs. Any vet could join the AL, VFW membership was only open to those that had served in overseas confict. I pretty much grew up in a VFW hall.

But going back the to my OP about the perception of time, I didn't mean to imply the in 1960  WWII seemed distant to my parents generation - I just meant the way time compresses as you age. When you and I were young in the 60's, 1945 seemed impossibly long ago to *us*, even though we were indeed surrounded by its echoes daily. In one sense it's a trivial thing to say since at 15 yrs old you don't have any 20 yr memories of your own. And I guess that is really the point I meant to make, which is that 20 yrs ago is a long time when you have to use someone else's memory to access it, but your in your *own* memories, the linearity of time can tend to disappear completely and 20 yrs in your own experience as an adult can have no sense of distance at all.

And the related idea that Chas brought up about whether the presistance of - or ability to  - access all history as a single flat database that the 'net provides changes how people experience that -- or not. 

That's interesting, that there were two organizations, the Legion and the VFW.  As for your perception that "When you and I were young in the 60's, 1945 seemed impossibly long ago to *us*", my point is that no, to me it did not.  It seemed like I just missed it.  It still does.

[oblong]

I know the legion halls are struggling.  Returning vets are not joining.  Part of it is simply demographics.  Before you had clusters of people living together in cities and the inner ring suburbs.  The "boys" wanted a place to go.  Now people are scattered all over the place and the need to "get together" is diminished in part by social media.  We don't in general gather like we used to socially because we're connected in other ways. That's in all aspects of life.  Even 20 years ago I was more likely to just go hang out at a sports bar with friends to watch a playoff game on a big TV.  Now I can do that at home and just text everyone or post here.  

I've only been to legion or VFW halls for funeral or grad parties.  We also have a polish and Czech catering hall that I've been to for events and it's very similar in nature.  I love those places.  The paneled walls.. cheap beer in the small glasses.   

[Tigeraholic1]

9 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

My father is still hanging in there.  He was a front lines solder in WWII - Rapido River, Monte Cassino, etc.  he turns 99 this month.    

Last of the greatest generation. I lost my grandpa (101st Airborne, night dropped into Normandy, opertation Overlord) in 2012, He would have been 100 this August. 

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

my point is that no, to me it did not.  It seemed like I just missed it.  It still does.

Interesting. Do you suppose in CA there was more of a 'Euro' sense of being 'in history' and the echo of a deeper sense of peril for England than maybe I grew up with in the US?  Maybe another factor looking back in the US is that by the time we were finishing grade school, WWII was already 2 US wars away.

Was Korea much of a thing in CA?

[Jim Cowan]

Korea never got much air time here, hard to say why exactly.  The Canadian army did participate, about 25,000 people, but it does not get remembered as an important event the way that the World Wars do. My recollection of the reason often quoted for American military activities had something to do with "the spread of communism", but there was never a communist bogeyman here.  So perhaps the war does not have a compelling reason in peoples' minds in the way that WW2 does.

[CMRivdogs]

I remember being fed the "Domino Theory" growing up near the beginning of Viet Nam. Since I'm too young to have lived during Korea, I wonder if that was the same thread of thought. Korea falls, then China moves into the Pacific (Hawaii.....) and on to the mainland. 
 

I did have an uncle or two who served during Korea. I'm not sure where, might have in the Navy. I did have a cousin killed in Viet Nam. He was a truck driver carrying helicopter fuel. The story I heard was when he died he filling in for someone who was too wasted to do his job that day.

[Jim Cowan]

I have a good war story about a relative, my great uncle Roy was a stretcher bearer at the Somme.  Of course he got hit, and ended up in a hospital in London.  And while he was there, the Canadian army stopped his pay.  He wasn't on active service.  He had to write a letter home to get them to send him some money.