I can provide a little more insight into your post, which I think is correct. My birthday is Pearl Harbor Day, but the event itself was nearly 30 years before I was born (though not quite). I was only a kid -- 6 or 7 -- when I learned and understood what it was and what had happened, but I was simply unable to absorb the emotional impact of it. I knew it from grainy black-and-white footage, which in my color world, made it seem all the more ancient. That idea was confirmed by the fact that my parents had yet to be born on that day (though both did follow before the end of World War II).
I would mention it on my birthday and none of my friends knew what it was, probably into high school or whenever it eventually crossed their radar. Their parents understood my references to it, but I don't know if any were old enough to have actual recollections of it. Probably not, as I scan through the ones I remember and do the math. By 2001, Pearl Harbor Day had largely been relegated to the history books, documentary programs, and the world of war buffs.
Interestingly, 9/11 reinjected Pearl Harbor Day into the American conscience, perhaps because two newer generations finally had some emotional context for it. There is a pretty wide gulf between knowing intellectually that an event happened, and experiencing it -- even through distance or television. It was much easier then for me to process the horror of learning about an attack in real time, news unfolding over the course of a morning to reveal a ghastly reality I had, to that point, thought was beyond reality.
But that was 23 years ago. Still entirely too vivid to me, but I wonder about how a kid in high school experiences it. They don't recall it if they were born in, say, 2005. They know it like my father, born in 1945, knows Pearl Harbor (though he, as somewhat a of a war/air combat buff, does possess plenty of acquired knowledge of it). On the one hand, I think it's unfortunate that we struggle to impart the feelings of fear and outrage we felt that day upon them, but on the other hand, I envy them for never having experienced a day like that. God willing, they never will. However, in another generation, not many people will have firsthand recollections of 9/11, and the ones who do will be old folks. I was 30 then; should I live another 20 years, I'll be halfway through my seventies. Tempus fugit, and with it goes our collective memories.
A footnote about Pearl Harbor Day, though: From my perspective, there is a great and wider recognition of that event than there was in 2000. Memories of 9/11 seem to have re-elevated it in our public consciousness, even today. It's waning, but still seems to be at a higher level than I experienced as a kid. That's probably good.
