Looking back at my childhood growing up in a small NATO country (The Netherlands), it really strikes me. I found a box of my childhood drawings at my parents place. I’d drawn soldiers and fighter jets etcetera and they mostly had US flags. Some kind of militaristic nationalism is common in many places I guess but apparently I had grown up emotionally attached to the US military.
> Through public education, and general coverage in medias/fil/documentaries.
On children’s television, every year I’d see interviews with the American and Canadian soldiers that liberated the Netherlands. Which of course is important but… I watched an item on Auschwitz were they managed to talk about the history and liberation of the camp for twenty minutes without ever mentioning the country that the liberating soldiers came from.