I can’t even imagine what Christmas was like 80 years ago.

Eighteen days earlier the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Within minutes 2,408 Americans were dead. A day later we were officially at war.

The future looked beyond bleak. Many feared an attack on the mainland was imminent. Blackouts were the norm.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans enlisted including high school students who often lied about their age.

Within months fear had manifested to the point people who knew better didn’t question the government essentially incarcerating fellow Americans — even If they were good neighbors, successful farmers and shopkeepers, and devout members of their congregations — simply because of their Japanese ancestry.

Rationing became the norm. Gas sales were restricted as was the availability of food. Drives were conducted to gather metals, rubber and other items that could be recycled and turned into tanks, airplanes, and ships.

No one complained about working overtime. Not to work in some fashion to help the nation endure was blasphemy.

By the time Christmas 1942 rolled around, rest assured the nation was war weary. Things were not going well on virtually every front — the Pacific, Northern Africa, Europe, and Asia.

The darkness was kept at bay, though. We had a president in the White House that was forged by his own personal battle against polio, a crippling and deadly disease that is almost completely at its knees today due to vaccines.

People followed the news intently for word of battles in distant lands that they may have loved ones, friends, neighbors, former fellow employees deployed and whose lives could be in the balance.

They didn’t turn to radio programming or read pundits’ columns that traded in gloom and doom. Nor did they waste time listening to politicians, commentators, or anyone for that matter who was making it their life’s mission to tear apart fellow Americans and drive wedges between people.

People were too invested in helping the nation survive, dealing with the trials and tribulations the war effort created on the home front, and had tolerance for those spreading misinformation that fanned fears. They learned after the darkest days of December 1941 that fear was as a big an enemy to civilization and mankind as the Axis Powers.

Even as things improved somewhat after three years, there were still sacrifices being made and the end of World War II, even though the scales had tipped toward the Allies, was far from being a forgone conclusion. Everyone also knew that victory per se would not end the challenge as the nation and world would have to rebuild from the rubble of civilization and humanity the plague of global war created.

And while comparing the horrors and trials of World War II with the COVID-19 is almost as incredibly shallow as those who compare mask mandates to what Adolph Hitler did to the Jews, looking at the two pivotal events of world war and pandemic might get us to stop hyperventilating and screaming at each other.

Pandemics, just like most wars, are never one year and done no matter how smug we think we are at being able to control nature.

And like a nation at war, it is hard to simply sit out a pandemic holed up in the middle of nowhere or ignoring government decrees aimed at winning the struggle.

The incessant whining and worry about supply chain disruptions triggered by the pandemic would have virtually anyone who was alive in 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945 in almost any far corner of the planet either laugh, look at us as if we were ungrateful crazies, or were self-centered wimps.

Many Americans this week are supposedly worried Amazon or Walmart may not have the Christmas gifts they want to put under the tree. Back 77 to 79 years ago getting basic supplies to troops fighting for freedom was a worry everyone shared. If Christmas was meager because store shelves didn’t have a perceived want, people were still grateful just to be alive.

As for the bean counters that relish in quoting the body count and those who dismiss the tally, they need to clear their minds and hearts. The global ravages of World War II makes the COVID-19 pandemic seem more like colds that morphed into deadly cases of pneumonia.

But more aptly the chance of you as well as neighbors or loved ones dying in a pandemic depends upon how effective vulnerable — and sometimes not so vulnerable — people are protected against the virus.

War is a crapshoot that ultimately you have no personal control over. If you think war is something that kills people — even if they are your fellow countrymen — on some distant land you might want to ask some who was around in World War II that lived in England, Poland, Russia, France, Algeria, China, Japan, Italy, Denmark, the Philippines, Germany or dozens or in dozens was of other countries.

That list includes the United States. Besides the attack on Hawaii, nine Japanese subs attacked eight American merchant ships between Dec. 18-24, 1941 within sight of the California and Oregon coastlines. Four ships were damaged, two sunk, and six American merchant seamen killed. That — along with the shelling of an area near Santa Barbara that destroyed an oil derrick and a pier and the unsuccessful shelling of Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon — made it clear the United States mainland population was vulnerable.

Wearing a face mask back in 1941 or even 1944 wouldn’t have saved the life of those in harm’s way of bombs, shelling or even gas chambers nor would a vaccine have reduced their chances of death or even debilitating health consequences.

Americans back when we were really at war didn’t tune in to hear the sharp tongues of those like Chris Matthews or Tucker Carlson in a search to put the world into perspective.

Instead they were drawn to the writings of Irving Berlin delivered by the likes of folks such as Bing Crosby.

“White Christmas” endured as the most played song on English speaking airwaves for more than 40 years before being displaced by a Beatles song not because it was sappy but due to it striking a reassuring chord reminding millions what is really important as they battle darkness.

There are reasons why people opt to not get vaccinated. But if the simple act of wearing face mask indoors through Jan. 15 and perhaps again as the pandemic takes its course of downward swings and upswings as the months and even years unfold is too much one to bear then you seriously need to read history books or listen to those that survived December 1941 and are

still alive instead of following the rantings in a world that is virtual and not real that’s better known as the Internet.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com