Us history question?

Hi all. I am not American but I am very interested in history and I spend a lot of time as well reading about American history.<br><br>My question is more about the lingual part rather than actual events.<br><br>I am from a country where English is not the mother tongue so you’ll have to forgive me but I am not able to tell the difference between the words “post” and “past”.<br><br>I recently heard a phrase from a podcast which really made me thinking of the difference between these two words.<br><br>The phrase was “the post war era”<br><br>I did not get it, which is understandable since English is not my native language, but I thought it was referring to the mail post. I did not get the connection at all until I looked it up on google and I found out that “post” and “past” can be used as synonyms.<br><br>Then I started thinking of how many times I had heard the phrase “post 9/11”. Which obviously was referring to the events after 9/11 came to light to the public.<br><br>So my question to you guys is that considering that the word “post” gives more the meaning of “after” and “past” gives more the meaning of “before” do you consider the usage of “post” to be correct? <br><br>The reason I am asking this is because I am genuinely curious, I do not mean to criticize anything but if I would have to guess I would rather say “past war era” than “post war era”. <br><br>Thanks