The Greatest Generation
I read Tom Brokaw's book, The Greatest Generation, awhile ago but a new song i heard recently renewed my interest in it again. This book was a great book that I would recommend to anyone, especially others in my generation and the generations following (people in their twenties). This generation got something that has slowly been seeping out of our society. This generation said "yes sir and yes ma'am". This generation fought for their country through some of the more difficult time periods our country has endured. The women encouraged their husbands to fight and were back at home supporting their effort in anyway that they could, not protesting the war that was already taking place. It was a shameful thing for people of this generation to utilize welfare. . .it is the accepted norm now(see Cinderella man). This generation was not afraid to stand up for what was right. The lines of right and wrong were not blurred as they are today. They were not open for much interpretation. They worked hard everyday, not for their own gain, but to support their families. They loved their God.My generation has gone terribly wrong somewhere. We look at older people and say that "they are stuck in their old ways". We don't look to them for wisdom but wait for the last of them to pass on so that they won't "hold our society back". War? heaven forbid that we go to war. No one likes war. No one like wa 75 years ago but it's necessary, like it or not. Our generation wants to sit back and say, " we should not go to war, we should not fight" yet we emjoy our freedom of being able to say those things. Obviously peace would be the ideal, but realistically, looking at human nature, it's probably not going to happen. I'm not saying we shouldn't strive for that, but we also shouldn't be afraid to fight if it comes to that. We've taken prayer and the pledge of allegiance out of our schools. We say that "whatever you feel is alright, as long as it's good for you". We are the generation of debt. We crave instant gratification. We have not had to endure difficult times such as our grandparents and great grandparents. We are blessed in that but in some respects we are also cursed because of that. We have never had to fight for our next meal, never had to lean on our next door neighbor whose husband/father/child is also away at war. Because we have not experienced those things, I think we have come to think we are owed something from our government. We deserve to live in a free country without really having to fight for it. We deserve to have a great jobs and never feel hunger pains. We deserve to dictate what is right and wrong. We deserve to have a slap on the head.
We have come far since that time. We have done great things. I don't hate our generation by any means. I just think we have missed out on a lot because we thought we knew it all and that we have all the answers. We look back at that generation and feel sorry for them. I think they look on our generation and feel sorry for us, that we have somehow missed the mark in a lot of areas. I think they are probably right.
posted by Sam at 8:57 PM
4 Comments:
Sammy, I agree, however I'm not sure about the, "No one like wa 75 years ago". No I really do agree that too many of us, myself included at times, take ALL that is given to us for granted. We take God for granted and we take His gifts for granted; we take our freedom for granted and the blood those freedoms cost for granted, and the list goes on.
My grandfather, who lived through the depression, who served in WWII, and who had dehabilitating arthritis from serving, never cursed the army, the president, the war, or God. He praises my grandmother, to this day, for never giving him grief about how they were going to support themselves or their children when the doctor told him that he would most likely never be able to work. And during the weeks that followed when he was bedridden, she stuck by his side with unwaivering love, not blaming God, or the army, or him. This type of devotion, and selflessness we see in Biblical characters and many earlier generations but we somehow have come to believe we are unable, or maybe un-required, to possess.
We as American's tout our self-reliance, but self-reliance requires us to take responsibility for ourself, to have dilligence, to be devoted to God and all that we have vowed, and most of all it reqires reliance on God. I think maybe these are a few of the things so may generations have seen that ours has lost sight of.
You know, I was thinking something to the tune of this very post just Sunday afternoon. Instead of working (duh) I watched Saving Private Ryan and began pondering the shifty nature of American ethics. In terms of war, the whole concept of "ration stamps" and "victory gardens" has gone out the window, though there was a time when Americans felt that they (and not just the soldiers-everyone) had something for which fighting would be justified. Whether or not people were on board with the "ethics" of war in the 1940s (for example), the fact remains that roughtly the entire country supported, well, ITSELF. American interets were the interests of Americans back then (as idiotic as that sounds). However, now it seems we are simply self-destructive, self-degrading, ex-pats ...who still "live off da fat of da land" here in the States. Would the people who speak out as though they hate America ever move to Libya or the Sudan? --probably not. The idea of a bi-partisan nation that would sooner serve terrorists than support its own leadership was still decades in the making by WWII, and now that we are "back in war," sixty-some years later, the changes are bubblingn to the surface. In many ways, it boils down to a loss of respect and recognition of authority - not just God, or the president, or each other, but it seems that we've traded the "everyman" mentality for the concept that My Rights supersede any action for the benefit of All (or in certain cases, Mankind). I feel like such a dinosaur saying this, but who knew America would come to a point that it would rather see other people in bondange, in rape rooms, in the iron grip of a dictator, just to avoid supporting a president they thought was an imbecile?
Don't get me wrong: I love this country because I love learning about where it has been, and the people who made it an amazing place for us to live, but believe that America has lost its salt.
p.s. I love you :)
wow... apparently I have trouble typing/spelling. hopefully you can muck through that last comment.
p.p.s: when was it that you were going to visit Michigan? ... just wondering.
Tonight I had book club at my house, where we had read The Sunflower by Simon Weisenthal (which i talked about in another post). This topic sort of came up because the book club is intergenerational. There were two ladies there who had lived through WWII and could remember what life was like back then. It was soo interesting. i think life was definitely harder back then, but also more simple.
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