The Greatest Generation?

Lou, I will definitely look into this one... I've been slowly adding books to my library, I would love to add this one.

Camaro... Good to see that passion come out! A word of descretion, I must advise you to remember this forums audience. You have conveyed some spicy statements with some hearfelt expressions. If you can prove or provide some references, I believe your foundation will stand firm. Speaking from my own experience on this forum. It's very easy to respond, and lack in the research dept. You have some very valid points! Nothing wrong with opinions here, by all means.... exercise that right. I hope you see this post, and find my words as cautionary and helpful.

Jem

 

*no soap box.. no toe stepping from me*

I see both sides.. both sides have good and bad.. but both are in different ways..

I think people reacted different to the war because they had the radio.. and we have the TV.. they had still pics and we see it first hand.. that makesd a much biger impact...

Then they had to deal with snal mail.. now we have the cell phones.. puters.. we can see our loved ones.. then they had to hope that when thye got that letter that was a week or more older they were still alive..

I for one do not like either side.. none is any better.. I watch my grandfather cry see all the men and women becoming another number.. I watch his face.. It breaks my heart because he knows what they are going threw..

I think all generations are equal what makes the difference is the technology but in all genre's they have made improvements to something or other that was a huge stepping stone for the next genre to improve on what was started in the last one..

as long as we keep moving forward but remembering the past and where we come from and learn we will not fail..

My motto.. Adapt and Overcome!!!!! I live by that...

 

John, you are profoundly mistaken. Western Civilization cannot be defeated by ten thousand, one hundred thousand or a million Islamic extremists. We are much more resiliant than they can imagine.


Dave

 

Never underestimate the young. They will meet the new challenges
of their time and overcome them.


Dave

 

Oy.

Piss us off enough, and you will find another great generation.
The real reason we pulled out of Somalia after 19 dead is because the vast majority of America doesn't give a DAMN about anything or anyone. Confront someone, ask them to donate to a worthy cause, and they will sympathize, maybe even donate. Lose 19 good men though, and they can't take it anymore. To them (or rather, us) one American life isn't worth dozens or even hundreds of lives.

The country, society, and all the adults in control right now are the product of the Vietnam age. The young generation, on the other hand, are the product of Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan, and the genocidal happenings in Africa that the US and the Western world watch closely, but fail to respond to. In a dozen years or so, the USA may once again take the role of "world police," whether for ill or for better, (if China hasn't taken the role yet).

If, on the other hand, American lives are threatened, you've let the dogs out. Back any nation or any group of people into a corner, and they'll surpass all expectations. Sure, our education standards are dropping, but we still have a strong foundation and a large population, both of which are paramount. Sure we can fight a World War III, or whatever, with courage. The real question is, when that time comes, if it ever does, will courage be enough?

 

The older generation thought nothing of getting up at five every morning - and the younger generation doesn't think much of it either. ~John J. Welsh

 

Hmmm . . . . I think a lot of you are missing Lou's point. The issue was not whether the generation that came of age during WWII was truly the Greatest Generation but rather, how it is that a generation that was so unprepared for greatness could actually rise to it. I think the simple answer is that they rose to the occasion because the only other option was death or subjugation.

Yes, the WWII generation was great. Yes, it was also flawed. Those flaws are irrelevant. The American soldiers and those on the home front during WWII did collectively rise to greatness because they had little other choice and -- and this is a big "and" -- they had the opportunity to achieve greatness. The reason we remember them as the greatest generation is that they achieved greatness through hardship and courage in the face of great oppression.

We cannot really compare the people of the Second World War to the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) of the USA. The greatness of America's nation builders was intellectual. They too risks, it is true, but the stakes were not nearly as high. If I recall correctly, more Americans died on D-Day than died during the entirety of the American Revolution. The Revolution was simply not of a scale to be compared to WWII but it did allow several brilliant men to create (IMO) the best model for government that has ever existed.

Every generation has the potential for greatness and many individuals do achieve it. One could argue that the generation that came of age in the 1980's and 90's gave us the dawn of the Internet Age. We cannot discount the greatness of those accomplishments even if they have not defined (yet) our political spectrum the way wars have done.

So, Lou, I am not surprised that the recruits of 1941 were soft and yet they achieved so much. They pursued pleasure while they could before the war but they accepted their duty when they were told that they had to do so.

And Camaro, passion is a good thing, but it needs to be balanced with reason. Based on your response you are a high school student in New Hampshire. You have not really experienced your generation yet so it is difficult for you to comment on it. We all felt the frustration that you feel because each generation does experience that. I do believe, however, that each American generation rises a little bit less than the previous generation because it is getting to easy to coast on past successes. My challenge to you, my young friend, is to go out and inspire greatness in your peers -- and you might begin that be realizing that if your school is as fragmented as you describe it (as is the case in every school, I suspect), look for ways to unify your own student population. More to the point, just be glad that your generation still has the time to rise to greatness. That is a luxury that some of the older Rogues might want to have, but can't.

 

That is why empires and nations rise and fall. Prosperity breeds complacency. It is dependent on not only our generation, but the generations after us, to make sure that the country does not fall into complacency, for there are many enemies that would wish us to do so.

 

Lou, I completely agree with you. The unprepared teen just out of school joining the army for many various reasons. Some wanted adventure, instead they got horror. Others needed some extra cash (National Guard), and never got to spend it. When the world entered one of it's darkest hours, there was little need for the potential that laid within each man (and woman). When the time came, everything else got put to the side. There was no me, me, me. There was a job to be done, and these men never looked back, despite the savagery and horrors of a battlefield. They knew what laid ahead for a good many of them, and still went headlong into the fires of hell. One day, we may well have the need to do it again.

 

Reading all of your posts and knowing todays veterans how are serving ad my nephew still is in the 82nd in Afghanistan today I do know this even though the media messes with the US public opinion the American spirit and the will to take command against any enemy will never ever perish..thats just the way our men and women who serve for us are.

 

Camaro you are wellcome on the forum. As dg and jemima point out passion is a good thing mostly.. And you raise some good points but you have to stay out of the cooler to raise them.

 

john, what do you want the ."american people" to do? Which beach do you want them to storm? Where do you suggest they drop their airborne on? What city do they launch nukes at? It seems to me they are doing what they can with what they can the best they can. They make mistakes.. Who doesnt.. But i see no evidence of them shying away. Do you have a target list and a road the m1 abrahams should be travelling?

 

Mr Mitchell wrote: "The issue was not whether the generation that came of age during WWII was truly the Greatest Generation but rather, how it is that a generation that was so unprepared for greatness could actually rise to it. I think the simple answer is that they rose to the occasion because the only other option was death or subjugation."

Unfortunately, he confuses WW II with the Revolutionary War. Defeat in 1775-1783
most certainly would have meant death or subjugation for the Americans who took up
the sword against the British Crown. In contrast, by the 20th century, America
was an industrial power protected by two vast oceans. Subjugation by either Japan
or Germany of the United States was never a possibility, even if Britain had been lost.
We had the population, the resources and the will to resist the Axis powers, whose
manpower would have been stretched to the limit to secure and occupy its conquered
lands. So subjugation was never an option.

The men and women of my parent's generation fought the Second World War
because it was necessary, and we rightly honor their service and sacrifices.
But those men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor
to create a new nation deserve to be remembered as the greatest Americans,
for they built the foundation for this noble experiment, what the poet Langston
Hughes called "the land that never has been yet - and yet must be."

Dave

 

Dave (Kerr5) ~ I can't agree with your analysis. The leaders of the revolution would most certainly have been executed but the rank and file soldiers would have gone back to their lives unmolested (except for thost who served in the Navy who most likely would have been conscripted). England did not want to destroy the market or the labor force that the colonies represented and the Crown would not have exacted a significant price other than increased taxes. It takes courage to shrug off the yoke of control from a distant King but not nearly the courage that was required of so many millions of men and women who served their country during WWII in the face of far more horrific weapons and a far more frightening enemy.

 

interesting thread gents would be interesting to get a ww2 vet from our forum to comment but personally as one from the Vietnam era and others I wouldn't. until you are on the battlefield firing at the enemy and receiving return fire you know of nothing first hand. in some ways and sadly many of us never had a childhood we grew up to dang fast on the lines behind the lines, behind enemy territory. Personally the whole thing has always sucked. Ladies/Gents we have our own honorable mentions most including our loved ones displayed here especially by new forum members............. in a word who cares, the vets of old and now don't give a rip; what they want if they could is bring their friends/bro's back from the grave.

v/r and for all nations sons as they are the greatest generation of their time

Erich ~

 

Well a large segment of todays and especially the up and coming is more comfortable kicked out in front of a TV eating Maccas rather than putting on those Sports shoes and being active.

 

Really now... I don't think todays' generation even know what Maccas are.

 

Agreed. As someone said earlier, we need "an enemy with a landmass."

The apathy of the American public is duly noted, but the military is trying hard in a time where it and its cause and its orders are all unpopular. We'd love all too much to put the terrorists in a single place and just take 'em all on.