The Greatest Generation

A friend told me that one of the last WWI survivors passed away recently. At first, I was rather indifferent. But as we talked, I could feel the stirring of anger in my belly. Not at the death itself (the man was over 100 years old and it’s a natural process), but at myself for being indifferent at all. I thought, “Wait. This really is the death of a generation; the generation that paved the way for everything we now hold dear as Americans, as the West. What the fuck is wrong with me?” I was struck by my innate reaction to what amounts to the passing away of a way of life.

CUT: [[I wrote a huge, long, involved post about this, but it started turning into more of a rant on a book scale than something for casual public consumption. As such, I took the emotions and ideas I was trying to convey and converted it into something more raw and yet more polished, more nonsensical yet more clear, more abstract yet more direct. Enjoy.]]

=========
Take responsibility
Be proud of your homeland
Work hard
Live simply
Love loyally
Sacrifice

The lessons of our grandparents and great-grandparents
Faint whispers in our bloodstream
The foundation of our proud cultures
Gauzy old pictures tossed aside
The Greatest Generation silently slips away
All they’ve taught us lost to history books

Think outside the box
Fluid interconnections
Question authority
Live for you
Attainment

The lessons of my generation, your generation
Flooding our screens in pixelwaves
The future of the West, key to its survival
Teeming with more ideas than we can stand
Generation Y bursts the edges of the canvas
And forges into shining tomorrow

We forget.
We revise.
We invent.
We dismiss.

We’re wrong.

We’re overlooking values that our greats and grands stood for
What made us all great and grand
Their circumstances were not unique; we’re fighting a war today
What made them special was their stance
The ethics of a strong man, strong woman, strong nation
Don’t try to change the winds of change
It’s asking for windburn in uncomfortable places
But what if maybe, just maybe
The ideals of the past and ideals of the present
Could hybrid and form the ideals of the future

Work hard at coming up with enterprising soutions
Be a knowledgeable and active patriot
Make tons of friends but love the one you’re with
Humbly accept praise but don’t demand it
Love your life and the lives of others
=========

As I sit here writing, I’m having trouble choking down what’s welling up just thinking about how disconnected we are from what most people would agree are infallible pillars of the American ideal. There’s a solider sitting across from me, on his way home from The Sandbox, smiling and talking to a stranger, and I can’t help but wonder what his grandchildren will think of his generation, of my generation. What mark will we leave on the world? Will we be great, or, like the men and women of the World Wars, will we, and our contributions to the world culture, be forgotten?

Suggested Reading
• 7 Lessons in Manliness From the Greatest Generation
• Instilling the Values of America’s Greatest Generation in the Youth of Today
• What Generation Y Really Wants
• Generation Y: They’ve Arrived at Work with a New Attitude

Posted: August 7th, 2009 under history, inspiration, observation, scribbles.