The Greatest Generation

I live in my own little world cut off from everyone else. Sometimes I get out, and, when I do, I like to observe things and talk to people and find out their perspective. When I come across a new or unique perspective that challenges my worldview, it is often years before I finish processing the ideas gleaned from that individual. Some people have a way of taking a lifetime of experiences and distilling it down into a catchphrase or mannerism that defines them, or at least summarizes them. I ran into three such individuals one bright March day, and they changed the way I viewed my generation and myself.

As a computer science major at an engineering school, I had plenty of extremely nerdy roommates and very few opportunities for romantic entanglement. This meant that most of us did not marry until well after college, and it was at one such wedding that I met three gentlemen who gave me a real-life glimpse into a greater generation than my own.

I got my obligatory glass of punch and sat down at an open table in the back of a mostly empty gymnasium with my only other friend in attendance. Instead of being joined by attractive single ladies as we had secretly hoped, the free chairs were quickly filled by three older men and their spouses.

My plan was to get the day over with: make pleasantries for a while, choke down some cake, and make a quiet exit. Instead I found myself challenged by these men. When they started talking, I discovered that all three were veterans. The youngest of the three, Roger, a mid-sixties air force radar operator who had served in Vietnam in tandem with the Navy’s U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, was the one who started telling the war stories. He did two tours of duty in Vietnam and, although he never saw an enemy soldier face to face, told stories of the massive raids conducted by our air patrols, and what life on base and ship was like.

Harry and Wayne were much older and had both served in World War II. Harry talked about his tour of duty onboard a navy destroyer in the south pacific. That same destroyer was sunk later in the war, after he completed his tour, and many of his fellow sailors were not as fortunate. Wayne kept mostly to himself, but mentioned a few bits about his “landing in France” and the fight through its countryside with the Germans. I got the impression that the more action someone has seen, the less they talk about it. Wayne was the least talkative, so I concluded he had probably seen his fair share of combat.

At first, they kept the conversation to themselves. That lasted until I chimed in asking a question about a battle group composition, correctly identifying a ship in the 7th with the Kitty Hawk. Surprised that I knew something about what they were talking about and was interested in their stories, they began to include me in the conversation. Obviously, I was thrilled to get such excellent first-hand accounts. It was in this bridging of the generations that I began to first feel the shortcomings of my own generation. I have never operated a radar station. I have never directed dozens of planes to a position to bombard enemy troops. I have very rarely pulled twelve-hour shifts, and not for weeks at a time with practically no time off. On the rare occasion I sleep outside, I do it in a nice thermal sleeping bag, with a fancy tent over me and Power Bars to keep me well fed – not on the cold hard earth of France, under the stars, with a blanket or two and some hay underneath me. Never once have I been shot at. I have never had to put on a flak jacket when I roll out of bed in the morning. When and if I do roll out of bed in the morning, it is a soft warm bed followed by a warm shower. These guys slept in a room smaller than my kitchen and shared with seven other men while it rocked violently with the ocean waves. I had problems falling asleep on a gently rocking cruise ship after a day of lying in the sun and eating fattening food.

Have we killed? Have we fought? These guys have. Of course, only on rare occasion was it actual face-to-face combat, but they were soldiers. Every day might have been their last. Most of their stories they told were not combat related, and I got the impression that they spent most of their tours of duty either getting to, or leaving, the combat theater. The things they remembered the most were little stories about the food, a good buddy’s shenanigans, or a notoriously clueless officer.

In that way, I was able to relate. Most of their daily duties were mundane. 99% of being a soldier in those days was being a cook, a janitor, an errand runner, a hiker, or a machine operator. They had weeks of enduring sweltering heat or bitter cold, while waiting for a shot at Charlie. I have done some things that were difficult and tested my discipline and perseverance, but nothing of that duration and intensity.

Today’s world is not worthy. We are undisciplined, lazy, disrespectful, fat, bitchy Americans with no concept of hardship, no sense of purpose, and no plan to change. When I turn on the television (a rarity), all I can do is marvel in disgust as I channel-change up to the History Channel, my favorite.

Try this experiment sometime. Watch something on the History Channel and put yourself in the shoes of some of the people you see in the documentaries, people like these Vets, and then flip down to a random channel. Maybe it will be the news, with a special expose on the fast-food industry. Maybe it will be a talk show where some spoiled teenager identifies their neurosis and the drugs used to treat it. Maybe you’ll get a professional sporting event where an overpaid athlete will do something grossly immature that gets him a slap on the wrist and a suspension. Compare the two things you see. Compare the ordeals of a man like a marine sniper who spends weeks at a time in the jungle – making long grueling patrols in high heat and humidity, waving off aggressive insects, dropping dozens of enemy soldiers – with perhaps the anguish shown in a news report by a cook in a commercial kitchen, complaining that he needs mats under his feet because the job is ruining his life by making him sore every night.

It will not be long before you start to get a little depressed and angry. I personally look at the world around me as the best evidence against evolution. The human race seems to be getting dumber, weaker, and lazier, not more and more ascended. Everywhere I look, all I see is corruption, inefficiency, and immorality. No utopia is found in this modern day America. What we have is something false, hollow, and shallow.

I realize that it is an unfair comparison. You can not compare the historical heroes of yesterday to the line cooks of today. In thirty years, no one will make a documentary about a line cook. While it is true that they only make documentaries about the most exceptional people, I think it is also true that these three men were common guys doing uncommon things. They were heroes, but humble enough to think they were just doing their job.

Roger told us about participating in a bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese (“Rolling Thunder” most likely). The aircraft he flew on as a radar or radio operator (sounded like he did both) had flown ahead of a huge squadron of bombers and, as they reached the range of enemy SAM missile batteries, they dropped millions and millions of small pieces of foil chaff to confuse enemy radar and create a “wall” they could not see through. Stories like this are not mundane. Hundreds of strike aircraft blazing towards a target they will hit with thousands of munitions is not an everyday job done by a common man. I have no work related story that can compare to his simplest war story. I have never been instrumental in putting up cover to save hundreds of my comrades’ lives.

In some ways, their military service was just a job. Occasionally, the real trials would hit and that is what hardened them and tested them as men. The two oldest men have of course retired. After coming home from the war, they both got blue-collar industrial jobs which lasted them the rest of their careers, going in everyday and working for an honest wage. They took the discipline they learned in the service and it enabled them to just hold out until retirement. Although I feel it is a somewhat ignoble way to end things, I doubt they feel that way. They made comments like “just doing my job,” “serving my country” and “it was the right thing to do”.

I do not do the right thing often enough, and I don’t serve my country much. Most of the time, I hardly even do my job. It is my belief these are all connected. It was not about the individual, it was about the team, the group, and a bigger picture. The world was at war, and they were going to do their part to preserve peace, freedom, and liberty. If that meant months of cold nights in France just to shoot at a handful of Germans who were about to surrender in a few months anyways, they did it. If that meant sharing a tiny bunkroom with seven other guys for months at a time, they did it. Even when that meant being the 5th and least glamorous crewman on a plane with no weaponry which only protected other planes, from another unit or branch of the military, so they could bomb an enemy of a friendly nation who asked for our help all the while knowing that people at home would curse them and spit on them when they returned, they did it.

The Greatest Generation gave part of itself to make America a great nation, and today we are coasting more and more on that momentum. Eventually, the momentum will run out and we will have to start pedaling on our own. The Greatest Generation had its slackers too, they told me plenty of stories about that, but I think the percentage of us who are lazy and useless has gone way up.

If we are to become the second Great Generation, we have to start acting like it. We have to start behaving like the heroes on the History Channel. These were mostly very common people with uncommon determination and resolve. We have some things going for us, one of which is our high level of education. It is easier to build great wonders or massive, beautiful ships of war with the technology we have today. Unfortunately for us, we tend to spend our efforts “inventing ways of doing evil.”

Maybe I am being too hard on us and too respectful of prior generations. Whether I have a skewed view is for you to judge, but I do know something is not right. This is not the great destiny we were called to. Perhaps we need to turn off the TV and get back to work.

by Jonathan Proft

This article is dedicated to the men and women who have fought in extreme circumstances and worked hard in the mundane to preserve my freedom and way of life from the many evils in the world, and to our current fighting forces scattered abroad. We salute you on this Veteran’s Day. May God protect you and may you inspire future generations with your heroism and uncommon determination.