By:JOSEPH KELLARD
Most Americans regard the atrocities committed against their country on Sept. 11 as acts of war. Among them are many people who, unlike most other Americans, watched those atrocities unfold from the perspective of having participated in wars themselves.
Members of the VFW Post 5199 in Oceanside and the American Legion Post 1029 in Island Park, which include veterans from World War II to the Gulf War, drew comparisons between the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the conflicts they went through.
I think that the reaction to this horror was much more than Pearl Harbor, said Frank McGinty, a veteran of WW II and a member of Island Park's American Legion. Remember, at that time Hawaii was not yet a state, it was thousands and thousands of miles away from New York, but in this recent incident it was the first time that an enemy has attacked us on our own land since the War of 1812.
McGinty joined the U.S. military at age 18 in October 1940 and throughout the war sailed the Pacific on the USS Lexington, which was attacked by Japanese torpedo-bombers on May 8, 1942, days before he was to disembark that ship.
When they showed the pictures of the two towers collapsing, I always thought that seeing a ship sink was a terrible sight, but, boy, that topped it. McGinty sighed and shook his head in disbelief. That topped it.
Bob Perdicaro, a veteran of the Korean conflict and an Oceanside resident since 1962, also recalled Dec. 7, 1941.
I remember the Pearl Harbor attack and it was devastating, but this is really devastating.
While comparisons have been widely drawn between the Dec. 7 and Sept. 11 attacks, local veterans also compared the American people's overwhelming support for this war-to-be and other wars.
The reaction of the American people after this attack compared to WW II is unbelievable, Frank Yacullo, an Oceanside resident who fought at Okinawa, said about the recent outpouring of patriotism as captured by the widespread displays of American flags outside people's homes and on their cars and lapels. I've never seen anything like it. It brings tears to my eyes. I can't believe that people today care that much.
I remember this happening in Pearl Harbor, and right after that America was 100 percent unified for World War II, but right now, it's more so, said Edward Hynes, a veteran who spent the last months of WWII in a German prison camp. All of a sudden, all this love of America came to life. It's great. It's beautiful.
Sharing those sentiments is Joe Aniano, a veteran of Korea and an Island Park Legionnaire, who chronicled the support given by Americans to various wars.
In World War II, you probably had 100 percent of the people backing the country to do what they had to do, Aniano said. In the Korean War, that support dropped a little bit, because people differed in opinion. In Vietnam it dropped even lower and so on. Now, this is the same situation as World War II, and that's why you have over 85 percent support back in the country again.
There is more patriotism today than there ever was back then, said Oceansider Jim Johnson, who choked up when comparing the atmosphere in America today with after he'd served 26 months in the Vietnam War starting in 1963.
Other vets described the atmosphere in America at the outbreak of that war as largely gung-ho, particularly among the WW II and Korean vets, but as the war progressed and casualties were growing and little or no progress was made, that's when people turned against it, they said.
At this point today, the country is much more united then it was during the later stages of Vietnam, said John Marino, commander of the Island Park American Legion, who was overseas during Vietnam but did not see action. A lot of that has to do with the leadership. As a conservative, Bush is doing what we expect to do. I was never certain what Lyndon Johnson was going to do. I don't even know that Johnson was certain what he was going to do.
Marino characterized the goal of this war against terrorists to be absolutely clearer than Vietnam, a war whose goal he is still trying to figure out, he lamented.
Other veterans believe the terrorist bombings of American embassies in Africa in 1998 and the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000 were also acts of war against our nation but which President Clinton took little to no action against, they said.
It took President Bush to take some action, and I think he's heading in the right direction, Predicaro said about the president's initial measures. He's holding back and making sure he's got all his allies on his side, he's making sure he can get this military operation off the ground without any problems. He's freezing the terrorists' money.
But Predicaro questions how to effectively fight terrorists, who he believes blur the clear distinctions that existed in past conflicts. When all of us fought wars
