I think what’s also important to note is that WWII was not fought on US shores, allowing it to be romanticised. The war isn’t glamourised in Europe the way it is in the States. Pearl Harbor isn’t viewed as a huge tragedy, but rather one of the final acts of a far more brutal conflict. And, with the exception of the UK joining in the “war on terror”, Europe by and large hasn’t had another major war, so shaken were we by WWII.
Ehh I would disagree with the point about the US being totally distinctive. Russia also has a “cult” of WW2, on that has lasted decades and is bigger than any similar patriotic myth in the US besides maybe our mythology of the American Revolution. And Russia by far suffered the most tremendous civilian casualties of that war.
