Culturally unequipped

I must admit, when I first watched 'Unrequited' I didn't understand the title's relation to the story. Maybe because I am so steeped in literature and was expecting a tragic love story or, maybe, because I'm not American, I just didn't get it.
I'm speaking as a person who spent many years - more than most - as a student, with essays to write which had to have a title before I could begin.
As an English teacher, I tell students that the title can come after the writing and, for many of these blogs, that's how they get the title they do. But I always begin with the title of the episode. Without a title I have nothing to write. It's a personal thing.
As I watched 'Unrequited' again, I still didn't get it. Until I read the review of this episode at them0vieblog.com. Then I got it.
When one is not American it is difficult to understand things that might seem obvious. Watch 'Apocalypse Now’ (1979) or ‘First Blood’ (1982) and get the feeling that Vietnam was significant. But we British have no trauma over losing a war. Of course we have those traumatized by war and I mean them no disrespect. But, as a nation, we don't have a Vietnam. We have lost wars, of course. Damn, we lost the American War of Independence! We don't have a national trauma over a war lost.
I am a teacher of literature and I understand the history of the world in terms of the poetry and drama and fiction that an age produced. I know nothing of the history of Ancient Greece, but can discuss Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Shamefully, I know less of English history than I should, but Beowulf, Spencer, Shakespeare, John Donne and the Romantics are listed in chronological order.
I wonder how many Americans understood the title of this episode. In 1997, how many Americans understood that the soldiers returning from Vietnam felt unrequited? Today, America has a respect and love for its warriors that it didn't have in the Seventies. Once, we built monuments to our war heroes. Trafalgar Square is one of my favourite spaces in London. Hard to believe we would do such a thing today.
Making an understatement here: war is not good. It says something for us that we seem to have come to understand this, even if we still fight the wars that must be fought. Even when there is no reason for the fighting, as in Desert Shield, the warriors did what was asked of them. And received little more understanding than those who went to Vietnam. But we are learning again to appreciate the valour of our troops who give their lives because it is expected of them.
‘First Blood’ (1982), another of the fifteen films in my top five favourite movies, comes closer to explaining 'Unrequited' than the episode itself does. Even having watched the always excellent Sylvester Stallone in ‘First Blood’ so many times, I still missed the title's meaning. Which is quite an admission from someone who normally gets the most obscure references in movies and TV. Just culturally unequipped to get it, I guess.

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