The Greatest Generation?
 By: Steven Kapetansky


3-23-2003

"The greatest generation," Tom Brokaw called them, speaking reverently of those 16 million American teenagers who left their homes, jobs, and schools a half century ago to ensure that you and I would not have to speak German today. By the end of WWII, their resolute sacrifices had truly made the world safe for democracy, seemingly earning for themselves the title of the Greatest American Generation. But, in my opinion, they were definitely not the greatest American generation. The greatest generation was the one that preceded them: the 90 million parents who willingly sent their sons to battle, knowing full well that they might never return. These stoic heroes answered the ultimate call-a call no less wrenching today than it was when God asked Abraham for his son Isaac. And these American heroes paid the ultimate price when one of every three of their sons did not return.

In the jubilation of the war's end-as GI's streamed home to fill their former places in our society, as hugs and kisses were exchanged-hundreds of thousands of places at family dinner tables remained desolately silent and empty. And though the hearts that had surrendered those boys to the war effort were doomed to remain forever broken, they accepted their lot with calm resignation and simple faith in a higher good.

Never have I been so aware and so convinced of the profound greatness of our great-grandparents' sacrifices than this past weekend, as I listened to the current generation of parents whose children fill the ranks of America's war effort and, alas, war dead. On one channel, a father berated President Bush for taking his only son, while on another a father scolded the Army for killing his son by making him fly a thirty-year-old helicopter. On a newspaper front page, a worried father lamented for three full columns of print about how unfair it is for his son to have to be in the desert instead of attending college classes.

Do not misunderstand-I do not begrudge these parents their well-earned worry and grief. Nor can I fully comprehend its magnitude until I myself am a parent. But I know the oath their sons took, for I myself took it one summer day, raising my right hand and promising to defend my country against all enemies, domestic and foreign. And from my own feelings as I left my native soil on another summer day to make good on that oath, I know all too well the fears their sons felt. But above all, we knew with surety that we had a risky job to do and we would do it no matter what the cost. So I find it difficult to comprehend how a father could accuse President Bush of "taking his son" when his son pledged his services to be a warrior. Just what did he think his son had signed up to do? Play professional golf?

And would a father still think that middle-aged helicopters were the cause of his son's death if he saw the obsolete, rickety wood and aluminum craft that carried so many young American youth into battle in WWII? And for the father blubbering in print about the unfairness of it all, perhaps he should ask the silver-haired old lady riding the bus across from him how many soldier-relatives' memories she is quietly guarding in her heart. And if he should find that she is one of those unfortunates who lost several (or even all) of her brothers or uncles to the war effort, he should be proud that at least his son is performing his duty with a fortitude that his father lacks.

Then perhaps our children can look to us with the same awe that we have as we behold our grandparents' and great-grandparents' courage. And then, perhaps, they may remember us, too, as one of the greatest generations, and not as the whiniest generation.