Reply #39: I remember my parents celebrating because "the war is over" [View All]

[Withywindle]

I was too little to know what that meant.

Vietnam, in that case. When my parents talk about "the war" that's more often than not the one they mean. Unless it's in reference to my dad's parents -- my grandfather fought in Europe in WWII. I think he was away when my father was born, in 1944. My mother's country wasn't involved in the war, and she wasn't born until '48 anyway, so for her that's not really what "the war" means.

Also, I grew up in the South, where "the war" very often means one particular war that nobody's old enough to physically remember, yet it's still very present in people's minds.

The first news story I remember really mesmerizing me personally was Jonestown: that Time magazine cover with the bodies everywhere, and I was old enough to be freaked out by it and try to understand why all these people killed themselves. I was 7 or 8.

That all seems like fairly long ago to me, but the Reagan Administration - totally yesterday! It's still 1986 somewhere in my head.