The Washington Post reports
A simple data point offered by a college commencement speaker jumped out at [non-employee Washington Post contributor Philip Bump] before being borne away on the tide of immediacy.
[...]The speaker was ABC journalist Martha Raddatz, and the point is [...]: The graduates have spent half their lives with America at war.
It's a startling idea, but an incorrect one. The percentage is almost certainly much higher than that.
Using somewhat subjective definitions of "at war"--Korea counts but Kosovo doesn't in our analysis, for example--we endeavored to figure out how much of each person's life has been spent with America at war. We used whole years for both the age and the war, so the brief Gulf War is given a full year, and World War II includes 1941. These are estimates.
The page contains a graphic that allows you to see what portion of your lifetime the USA has been formally engaged in hostilities according to your birth year.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday June 22 2015, @09:02PM
The 80's! Pretty steady increase/decrease, but queue the 80s and the rate just starts shooting through the roof *ba dum chhhh* (I'll let myself out)
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @10:15PM
Do we really need to add the 80s to some kind of waiting list?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 22 2015, @09:24PM
If you count the Cold War, then my whole life, really. Even after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union, there was the Balkan War where we bombed a bunch of Serbs. Then there were missile attacks on Sudan and military actions in Somalia. Of course Afghanistan and Iraq round out the set.
It gets harder if you don't count the Cold War, because then you get into all the proxy wars that fell under that general umbrella and whether or not you would call those 'being at war.'
There are also the Drug War and the War on Poverty and the War on Terror. A lot of money is spent on, and people die in, those too. War is a popular concept in America at least.
It would be a welcome change to have a real Pax Terra for a couple generations.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2015, @11:31PM
I'd be pleased with 20 years for a starter.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:05AM
"This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." - Ferdinand Foch
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:20AM
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Monday June 22 2015, @11:53PM
Well.... if you count the War on the People that corporations have been waging.... then I would say that my entire family has been at war their entire lives. Yep, back to before the Great Depression even.
As for the whole point of the affair, yes, I have gone my entire life basically feeling that I'm living in the capitol of Rome, and at some point right near the end before Rome gets sacked. Although, this time around I think the upper echelons figured out to sack the new Rome all by themselves and be well away before the "bill" comes due.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:53PM
What makes me laugh and laugh is that so many of them have gotten "well away" to private islands that are particularly vulnerable to things like sea-level rise due to climate change and the collapse of the Antarctican ice sheets. The coming fleets of "Boat People," or perhaps more appropriately, "Yacht People" begging for safe harbor in sodden mink stoles and tattered ball gowns will provide endless fodder for the comedians of the latter half of the 21st century.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:42PM
Man, could that put a new twist on Gilligan's Island.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Reziac on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:13AM
Yeah, I think if you count the War on Terror (IMO a stretch), you have to count the Cold War. Or don't count both.
I remember the air raid sirens still being tested every Sunday at noon. Wonder how many of these younger non-mil folks have even that much experience of the real thing.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by istartedi on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:07AM
I grew up in the DC area. We had the CD siren tests every month, tension with the USSR, and let's not forget our meddling in Central America which was a proxy war with the USSR. There was this guy in our school who said, "I'm going to go to El Salvador and get myself killed". He was otherwise a very fun person; so this was an oddly dark thing to say. Also, we were backing the Mujahedin in Afghanistan which would later haunt us.
Anyway, even "peace" had a lot of fighting. Oh, a bunch of Marines got killed in 1983 in Beirut [wikipedia.org]. Let's see... there was Grenada, and I'd be surprised if we didn't do something in Haiti during the "peace" period. We always do something in Haiti eventually. I'm probably forgetting a lot of stuff. Oh, oh.... Somalia.
Yep. Peace. Not a lot of it, really.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by bucket58 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:54PM
Where I live, they still test them every month on the first Monday at noon. They are mostly there for tornado alerts, but they have an alternate sound pattern for Civil Defense mode.
(Score: 1) by J053 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:02PM
(Score: 4, Touché) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:22AM
War is a popular concept in America at least.
That is because war is a profitable concept in America at least.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:53AM
There are also the Drug War and the War on Poverty and the War on Terror.
I always say: The US is great at starting wars... it's incredibly bad at winning them.
I think the last one we outright won because of something we did would be WWII I think...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:54AM
The US has been involved in "military actions" (whether or not you count them as "war") almost constantly since the late 1800's. As far as I'm concerned we've always been at war, and always will be until the economy can't support it any more.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 22 2015, @09:24PM
There's a similar project with California drought. I wonder if there's any cross fertilization and if so, who copied who?
There are (young) kids in some parts of CA who supposedly have never experienced rain.
(Score: 1) by Absolutely.Geek on Monday June 22 2015, @09:28PM
So looking at this 44.4% of my life the US has been formally at war; but for my little sister it is 75%. However all of my nicees and nephews it is 100%.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zugedneb on Monday June 22 2015, @09:33PM
Was it worth it?
Did you secure the resources you wanted?
Did you liberate the ones you wanted?
Did you bring freedom to the ones who need it?
Did you get the respect you craved for?
Did you get the gratitude you deserved?
Are you confused by the hate you recieve?
and so on...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @11:31PM
That assumes any one person had any significant control to enact even a hope of choice in the matter. Given the demographic of this site's readership, the odds are extremely good that the number of people that had a choice between war or peace was zero.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @11:42PM
You benefitted by the protections you received. Fucking ingrate.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by zugedneb on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:00AM
Well, here is the deal: it is about you, not about us. Are you fucking satisfied?
And also, the way WW2 was handled made europe politically impotent.
And made the people today think that the entire WW2 was about the jews, so we do not understand it and hence do not understand ourselves...
Now, everyone thinks that the germans did not have problems and did not have reasons to fight for their land, people think they were just trash. They had reasons, and now, nobody knows...
Personally, I am a holocaust denier, because the actual "eye witness" stories are batshit insane, and the "suffering of jews" is to similar to the "suffering of Christ" making me think that this is all just a sort of really-human religious mass hysteria...
You should not have butted in, and wasted american life for this.
Neither the communists and the nazis were that bad, and a lot of hardship of the cold war was because US intervention. What was coming for us was our fault. We should have dealt with it, and thus gain the wisdom that should have come...
Now we are just owned by corporates and jews.
We have no honor.
Thanks...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0, Disagree) by zugedneb on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:03AM
Yeah, thanks again...
Lemme tell you what, I have talked to "eye witnesses" myself.
Old poeple telling me, for every problem the country had, the local population took the burden, got impoverished, while at the same time, jewish businesses opened up. Yeah... All the gold and paintings the jews claim the nazis "stole" from them, they did dig it up themselves and painted themselves, yes?
With every problem in a country, the jews tried to get more hold of the government, and the trade...
They did whatever they could to keep the locals defunct in their own country.
Also, as the story goes, some native trade families converted to judaism, to have access to the jewish network, leaving the burden on others, to fight the church and the aristocrats...
The nazis were a breath of fresh air. They were about to clean up the parasites and the traitors.
Fucking thank you USA for your intervention...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:52AM
I can empathize with your frustration over people's ignorance. Germany had legitimate greviances against much of Europe, especially France. There isn't one American in a thousand that understands that, and there probably aren't very many more Euros who understand that.
But, denying the holocaust? You lose me with that, Pal. I can forgive or pardon the average German for all of that, because Fritz Average had no more knowledge or power over the "Final Solution" than I have over my government's actions. It was the Nazi Party that was responsible for the "Final Solution", the party's officers, not the general population.
You are aware that Adolph was judged by many of his contemporaries to be insane? The charismatic crazy man who attracted a lot of other charismatic crazies to his cause, did some very crazy things.
The world is better off without him, and without his party. Anyone who argues that is probably filled with hatred, and I'm not going to waste time arguing with him.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:56AM
What saddens me about the whole holocaust thing is that now it is only about the Jews. Their were well over a million Roma killed and they never got a homeland and are still treated like shit in parts of E Europe and not much better anywhere else. Then of course there were the others, homosexuals, the crippled including in the mind, and so on.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AnonTechie on Tuesday June 23 2015, @07:55AM
What about the 20 Million Russians who died in World War II ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union [wikipedia.org]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:56PM
I honestly have NOT forgotten the Russians. Russia has just recently completed their Memorial Day observances, complete with the parades in Red Square. I "observed" a lot of that on Russian Times. The commentary posted to the articles was often embarrassing - US people posted a lot of hateful crap, and some Euros did as well. For my part, I posted little, and what I posted was respectful.
As bad as my kinfolk had it during WW2 (mostly in the Pacific, fighting Japanese) it doesn't hold a candle to ten divisions sweeping across the homeland, and placing the capital under seige.
And, of course, the Chinese didn't have it any better.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:16PM
Jews constituted about half of the victims, using one definition. Using the broadest definition, many more non-Jewish victims died in the Holocaust. It is a human tragedy, but due to the political and PR efforts of Jews in the United States it has come to be regarded as a solely Jewish event. Political Science professor Norman Finkelstein [amazon.com] has written several well-documented books on how the Holocaust has been used to gain money and power.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:37PM
This is a good point that I suspect will get lost because of the second part of your post. The Germans did have problems. Severe ones. They were starving, broke, humiliated. Their country was in chaos, all of it the result of a world war that they were no more culpable for than had been the British, French, Russians, or Americans. They are a cultured, intelligent, vigorous people who knew they did not deserve what they got. The process through which they became Nazi Germany is a complex one that is very, very important for any democracy to understand because it can and is happening to many other democracies now.
I only began to understand that larger context when I saw "Triumph of the Will" on Netflix, because I never got the German side of the tale, having grown up in America where the historical narrative is entirely dominated by self-interested parties. I didn't even get the German side of the story when I lived in Germany, because the people there are so cowed by the manufactured "reality" of how it all went down. But when you hear what the Nazis had to say for themselves, it all suddenly becomes a lot more complicated, a lot less cartoonish and one dimensional. They had a plan. They wanted to make Germany strong again. They wanted to conquer the evil forces they perceived as having unjustly destroyed and humiliated them. They were serious and determined about it.
That's something that we can all see in ourselves, and see ourselves getting behind as a national plan in our own countries. It is something not a few of us nations are getting behind now as we speak. It is very easy to cross the line from that reasonable and in many ways laudable national project into repression, attrocity, and catastrophe. That's the ominous lesson in it: we can all become, and some are becoming, Nazis.
So the whole historical narrative of the Nazis as cartoon cutout bad guys is false and dangerous. They were as human as we are. Repeating the manufactured caricature of them is a business and a scam and utterly, despicably, self-serving.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @11:51PM
You're lucky to be here. If it wasn't for the US to keep your ass from getting ethnic cleansed out of existence, and all that other horrific stuff you europeans do to each other when someone isn't making you play nice with others.
(Score: 2) by zugedneb on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:24AM
I think, the peace, and the coming peace is no thanks to any nation, it is simply thanks to the technological and medical advancements.
Despite some issues inspiring a "gloomy mood", life is becoming pretty comfotable, and hence, the general population is not so keen on war.
But, we are the same people as we were before, and without the comfort, the cleansing would have been cyclic and inevitable.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 22 2015, @11:55PM
Calm down, Vlad. We're pretty pissed at our government too.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:13AM
Millions of innocents have died, many times more have been forced to live in poverty and under oppressive rule as a result of US aggression-- but the rich have become fabulously richer. The former doesn't matter to the classes that initiate wars, only the latter, so 100% success.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @09:33PM
All of it. North Korea. Nuf Said
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @09:45PM
And well said, and indeed 'Nuff. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @10:26PM
'Nuff 'nuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @11:29PM
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @09:37PM
If one is going to count the FUD-inducing neverending "War on Terror," one then also needs to include the "War on Poverty," "War on Drugs," and any other War on Things. Which means anyone under the age of 50 has been 100% at war.
Now if you wanted to count the main combat periods in Afghanistan and Iraq, that would be fine. But then one should count the minor conflicts like Bosnia, Somalia, etc.
(Score: 2, Funny) by mucsdnop on Monday June 22 2015, @10:45PM
How could you forget the most important war of all? The War on Christmas!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @09:38PM
Rather than using a somewhat subjective definition, they might want to consult the original source document [archives.gov] to decide what it means for the USA to be "at war"; Article I, section 8 seems most apropos. Of course, under that definition, the country has rarely ever actually been "at war" during my 50+-year lifetime. Yes, there is an obvious contradiction there. Maybe one of the branches of government needs to start reasserting their constitutional authority. (hint, hint)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 22 2015, @09:58PM
As one of our former leaders said, that's just a piece of paper.
We no longer operate under rule of law, we operate as a rogue nation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:34AM
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time...
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:20AM
That is all.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:41PM
Yes, sometime in the last 40 years the country was taken in a secret coup d'etat, and is now being looted by a very organized criminal gang. They're even spying on us in our very homes. It's the perfect crime, the most perfect in history. Even the victims don't yet realize they're victims.
Washington DC delenda est.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @10:48PM
Or was it Eurasia? Oh, crap! The thought police are going be after me now.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 22 2015, @11:43PM
(Score: 2) by Kell on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:57AM
I came here for this. :)
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday June 22 2015, @10:52PM
We've always been at war with someone or something. I doubt a time will come when this just isn't true anymore. There will always be a war with someone, something or some more or less abstract concept. War is what drives humanity forwards.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2015, @11:40PM
Care to demonstrate the necessity of war for human progress? I only need one counterexample to show it's not true, but... it's your statement, the burden of demonstration stays with you.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dogvomit on Monday June 22 2015, @10:54PM
They leave out too many things.
I was born in 1957. The Vietnam war started in '55, and the War on Drugs (which is still going strong) was launched by Nixon in '71, before Vietnam ended. So for me, the percentage is 100.
Our entire political psyche is founded on perma-war.
—George
(Score: 5, Insightful) by richtopia on Monday June 22 2015, @11:00PM
We've always been at war with Eurasia
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2015, @11:41PM
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @11:45PM
Simply amazing to be lectured by a bunch of Eurotards on this subject. The fucking experts on waging war, but look at them get all high and mighty when they can cast aspersions on someone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:15AM
No, not with Dubya's Iraq War, obviously, but with the idea that the USA has military deployed far and wide and will be sending in ships and planes on a regular basis. That's because the USA is the heir of Rome and the British Empire. With great power comes etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:41AM
It's amazing how many people -think- they have a handle on history and politics after their attendance at USA's schools^W indoctrination centers.
USA is an AGGRESSOR nation.
It's been that way since before the existence of USA.gov (starting with the extermination of the natives of this hemisphere).
USA.gov's goal is world domination.
If it can achieve that with threats and/or payoffs, that's a good outcome in the view of USA.gov.
If it has to drop tens of millions of tons of bombs on women and children, that's also OK in the view of USA.gov.
...but it is amazing how some folks still hold a belief that USA.gov is altruistic.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:32AM
USA is an AGGRESSOR nation.
It's been that way since before the existence of USA.gov (starting with the extermination of the natives of this hemisphere).
Newsflash: the same can be said about practically every other developed country.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:00AM
If they count wars on strategies like 'terror', they should count the war on the product called 'illegal drugs' as well.
In my opinion both aren't wars, they're simply profitable business models.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:44PM
This post just shows that the previous post is true and it's not just limited to polls. "Political Polls Become Less Reliable As We Head into 2016 Presidential Election". Though, I would say that most political polls and the like have a specific agenda. It's really hard to find someone that's not selling something when it comes to politics.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @06:33PM
I was born in 1914, you insensitive clod!