On Dec. 7, 1941, John Moon was 13.

Sitting in the back seat of a Buick on the way to see his Aunt Bess in Detroit, he heard on the radio Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

Moon, now 72, is a senior companion volunteer for Active Living for Adults and said the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington evoked emotions comparable to his initial reaction to Pearl Harbor.

“My reaction was similar to what is going on right now,” he said “Amazement and shock.”

The public has been bombarded countless times with media comparisons to the attack on Pearl Harbor, an event the student population at MSU has little means to relate, other than stories from grandparents and residents like Moon.

“I was kind of too young to be shocked right away, but I knew there was this terrible thing,” Moon said of the Pearl Harbor bombing, the event that drew the nation into World War II.

“But I remember growing up, the whole country was on one side. It was nice. After the war everybody was on different sides. I haven’t seen the kind of unity we have now since then.

“I don’t remember any real patriotic surge before the towers went down.”

On campus and in surrounding neighborhoods the rare unity Moon described is spray painted onto sheets in messages of support, strung from awnings and plant hooks. “Let there be peace,” “Our prayers are with you,” “Love goes out” or “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” are some examples.

Red, white and blue balloons, newspaper flag cut-outs and glossy U.S.A. picnic -table covers also serve as patriotic symbols - taped to windows or flapping in the breeze. Flags speckle doorways, porches and dorm windows everywhere and stick out from car antennas.

Business senior Andrea Phillips spent $22 and five hours to produce a large American flag on a white sheet, after she couldn’t locate a store-bought version. At night it’s illuminated by a small, bright spotlight, which is tilted toward the flag on a cinder block.

“Something like this brings everything together,” Phillips said. “Everyone wants to find out who did this, and there’s something about making a flag that feels good.

“We’re far away, but we’re showing our spirit for the country,” she added. “It’s sad that it takes something like this to make everyone so patriotic, but it’s neat when you drive around and see all the homemade signs and flags.”

Phillips said several friends bought a patriotic array of red, white and blue spotlights to illuminate their flag.

“It’s funny to see how kids who usually wouldn’t spend money on anything are out buying flags when they could buy whatever else,” she said.

MSU Board of Trustees Chairperson Colleen McNamara attended MSU during the Vietnam War. An active participant in the Vietnam anti-war movement, McNamara said student sentiment toward the New York City and Washington attacks and Vietnam era are nothing alike.

“Many students on campus felt the United States was a victimizer during Vietnam War,” she said. “That is certainly not the situation now.”

But McNamara agreed the clear attack of innocent victims last week has brought forth a call for unity and patriotism.

“On the day that it happened, I got calls from friends who were at home alone, and they just wanted to talk to somebody. We know now that we’re part of a large family, and we feel this new link between each other.

“It’s wonderful that students are displaying this kind of patriotism and loyalty to the country, but if things go in a horrible way, many of those students could be serving across the world in the army and armed services. That’s a tough thing to think about.”

While McNamara was protesting in the 1970s, Rosie Fuller’s grandsons were fighting in Vietnam as she worried about their safe return.

Fuller, an 81-year-old senior companion volunteer at the community center, was a 26 years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

“I was working at a factory, making spark plugs in Flint,” she said. “We were all surprised and we stopped for prayer.”

As Fuller and the country increased factory production in 1941, she pieced together a wartime scrapbook, though its whereabouts are now unknown.

But she has started a new book, a tradition now. Since last week, she’s pasted together scraps of paper with news quotes and clippings on the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks with a little help from her friends at the community center.

“I try to keep up with and write down what broadcasters say, but sometimes they talk too fast,” she said.

The news of last week’s attacks amazed her, slightly less than the horrible news in 1941.

“I was a little amazed, yet I expected it,” Fuller said. “They’ve been doing this all over the world and we figured it could never happen to us.”