What our grandparents' ration books say about our social contract

Wise words from my friend Julie. She posted this to Facebook. Paragraph breaks is mine:

A couple of years ago I visited with a dear and amazing cousin who was clearing out the apartment of her mother who had recently passed (a truly incredible woman, but that's a whole other story). Among the keepsakes she was sorting through was a book of rationing coupons from WW II. 

I had heard of these, of course, but never seen or held one until that moment. It was so poignant and powerful to look through them. There were coupons for butter and sugar and other household items; some were missing -- presumably spent by her family back in the day. Of course I was not alive then, but from what I've been told by family members, people proudly participated in the rationing effort. They pulled together in community and sacrificed for the war, denying themselves for the greater good, and feeling a great deal of pride about serving the cause. Many, of course, made the ultimate sacrifice, of their own lives, or those of their children or spouses. My mom lost her father to the war at the tender age of 9, and very nearly lost her oldest brother as well, who was shot down behind enemy lines and barely avoided capture. 

Anyone who knows me knows I'm no blind patriot -- I fully acknowledge that as a country we often fail abysmally to reach the aspirations set forth in our Constitution, and the toxicity embedded in our systems sometimes seems too much to bear or overcome. But something I am mourning right now is the prevalence of a warped belief by a significant minority of Americans that making even small sacrifices for the safety and well-being of our larger community is somehow a personal or patriotic failure, or worse. That wearing a mask, or social distancing, or getting a vaccination is "unAmerican." This is so upside-down. As flawed as being "American" can be, historically there is honestly nothing *more* American than sacrificing for the greater good. We can start with George Washington's requirement during the Revolutionary War that his troops be vaccinated against smallpox, which let me tell you did NOT involve walking into a nice clean Walgreens, having your arm swabbed with alcohol, and getting a quick little jab by a professional with a sterile, safe needle and a vaccine that had been rigorously scientifically tested. It was a dangerous, painful and ugly process and without it we would have lost the Revolutionary War. 

Fast forward to today, when a dear friend picking up take-out from a restaurant had a man attack her and literally threaten to rip the mask off of her face, because "we don't wear masks here." Some folks have been convinced that being selfish and endangering others is patriotic. It makes me so sad. I can't imagine how to heal it.