Apr 26, 2020 3 min read

In some cities and towns across the United States during World War II, sirens would ring out on select nights, and residents would have to turn out their lights and close their curtains. People outside who didn’t know or forgot that an air-raid drill was scheduled would have to take cover.

From our vantage point almost 80 years later, the notion that a small or medium-sized city somewhere in the heartland would have been targeted by the Germans or Japanese is the stuff of fantasy. But, in the wake of Pearl Harbor and the merciless bombing of Britain by the Luftwaffe, the possibility seemed all too palpable.

Sure, it must have been a source of inconvenience for some. There was a war on, though, and people complied. Undoubtedly some grumbled, but sacrifices needed to be made.

There were other sacrifices made on the home front during World War II. Scrap and paper drives were commonplace. People couldn’t purchase all the meat and sugar that they wanted. Sunday drives were all but forbidden. In retrospect, we see those renunciations as necessary and a crucial part of why America emerged triumphant from the war, and part of why the “Greatest Generation” has been so venerated.

It’s hard not to contrast the willingness to sacrifice in mid-century America with some of the sentiments far-right protesters expressed outside state capitols and some city streets last week. They were calling for an end to the restrictions that have been enacted to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Some waved signs declaring their desire to get a haircut. One said, “LET MY PEOPLE GO … LF.”

In the 1960s, it was sometimes said that anti-war protesters were thumbing their noses at the sacrifices of their forebears. Sorry, but those long-haired malcontents didn’t hold a candle to the folks taking to the ramparts because they miss wielding their five iron or worry about their roots showing.

Granted, the number of protesters who traveled to Harrisburg, Lansing, Mich., and other locations was relatively small. They are most assuredly in the minority, as overwhelming numbers of Americans have told pollsters they support the measures that have kept the economy and most other routine parts of America on hold as the coronavirus cuts its way across the landscape. And concerns about job losses and whether shuttered businesses will be irreparably damaged are valid. That kind of anxiety should not be shrugged off.

But we can figure out how to mend the economy later. Right now, we need to make sure our health system is not overwhelmed and the COVID-19 death toll in this country is in the thousands and not the millions. Trying to restart the economy too soon will more than likely damage public health and the economy. What good will it do to open everything again, having the number of cases and casualties spike, and having to close everything up again?

We need some of the same spirit that carried our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents through World War II.

Meg Jacobs, a research scholar at Princeton University, recently noted that the precautions we are taking “are an opportunity to renew our civic-mindedness, to wake up from our selfish slumbers and take action.”

She continued, “As hard as it is to stay indoors and self-quarantine, it will be great to know that in a crisis we each did our part.”