Perspective, i.e. oh god I'm old

[jethrien]

So I was thinking about that last history book I read, about Southeast Asia. It discussed the Vietnam War as relatively recent history, moving seamlessly into the fall of the Soviet Union and then into stuff I think of as "modern times".

And I realized something truly terrifying.

So the fall of Saigon, to me, is history. It's something that happened a long time ago. Almost 40 years, right? Way past, totally over it, move along.

The fall of Saigon was in 1975. The first Gulf War, which I clearly remember, which my father fought in, which is totally just the recent past, was in 1991.

More time has elapsed between now and Operation Desert Storm than elapsed between Desert Storm and the fall of Saigon.

Well. That just put a bunch of history into perspective. Yeesh.

Comments

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Anything that happened before you can remember, is Older than Dirt. Anything that happened after, is Quite Recent.

This is all there is to it :)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously. But I think part of what's shocking to me is that I've realized I think of "history" as connected and "recent events" as connected, but don't connect the two as well as I should. My brother is in Iraq right now partially because of Desert Storm. The Vietnam War happened because of French colonization. But in my head, the Cambodia of Khmer Rouge and the Cambodia of today are two different places, and the fact that Khmer Rouge was basically in charge until 1993 is shocking. Making the continuity jumps is surprisingly difficult. Which also is terrifying when I realize that China's been nonaggressive for a relatively short amount of time and the idea that they're biding their time until they build up economically and militarily enough to seize the South China Sea is not actually that implausible. Just because I don't remember a time when China was an active threat doesn't mean they aren't.