???The Greatest Generation???

The Greatest Generation…the name given to the generation of young American men and women that selflessly gave up their lives in defense of their nation and its founding values. Men and women who at the ages of 17 through roughly 25, with no thoughts of themselves, their lives, their wants and desires, enlisted in the Armed Forces, its auxiliary programs, worked in factories to supply weapons, vehicles, supplies, and much more. These young men fought through some of the worst and nastiest terrain and conditions in some of the most historic and notable battles America has ever seen. The Battle of the Bulge, Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Leyte Gulf, Normandy, Okinawa, the catalyst of Pearl Harbor. These are but a few of the iconic names that will forever live in the histories of the United States. These are just a few of the legendary battles fought by this Greatest Generation. Young women, high school and college age, taking the places of the men in the factories and plants and mills. These women were the archetype of today’s independent women, yet many do not even know it. They left home and joined the many Armed Forces auxiliary programs like the W.A.S.P.S. They joined the Red Cross. This “Greatest Generation” is what every young boy or girl with aspirations of being a pilot or doctor or astronaut or nurse or soldier wants to be. They want to be a part of something great, something bigger than themselves, something that changes a world, unites a nation, and inspires the masses.
I was one such young boy. One of the greatest and most influential icons of my life was watching old war movies with my father. In Harm’s Way, Run Silent-Run Deep, The Longest Day, Midway, Tora Tora Tora, Battle of the Bulge, Kelley’s Heroes, The Black Sheep Squadron, Patton, and numerous others. They would come on A.M.C. and later the History Channel. They would come on on Saturdays and Sundays. They would be one at a time or they would be marathons. Those were the greatest times of my life, sitting on the floor, my father in his chair or on the couch, my eyes glued to the screen, watching the 16 and 18 inchers of the battleships blast away, watching the P-40s and P-51s and B-17s and B-25s dive and rise and accelerate and pluck their enemies out of the sky. Watching, the thousands upon thousands of young men rush the beach, braving mines and obstacles and machine gun fire just to take some unnamed hill. I wanted to be like them, the everyday heroes on the screen. Not the actor himself, but the unnamed person, the idea, that the actor’s role represented.
There are names for most generations, “The Greatest Generation”, “Baby Boomers”, “Generation X”, and “Generation Next”. Each name is symbolic of the nature and character of its respective generation. “The Greatest Generation”- simply put, selfless. They may not have intended to become the greatest, but that is what happened. “Baby Boomers”- the surge of children born after the end of World War II. “Generation Next”- always looking for the next best thing, what is bigger and faster and better, in some respects losing sight of the present. But what does it say about the nature and character of our generation that they could give us nothing better than an unremarkable letter. Aside from the Roman numeral for the number 10, the letter X is used to convey the unknown, the unidentified.
I ask you, what have we as a generation accomplished? What have we contributed to this, our, world? What have we done to stand ourselves apart? What have we done to make the world aware and proud and grateful for our existence? High scores on Call of Duty and Halo? Higher and younger pregnancy rates? Higher dropout and unemployment rates? Higher drug and alcohol statistics? More and more digitally creative but otherwise useless gaming systems? Rising STD rates due to lack of self control and at the least, protection? With all of this, what can we ever hope to leave for the generation after us? What kind of legacy are we leaving for our children, our younger brothers and sisters? In just a few short years, WE will be the leaders of the world. The generations before us will be committed first to dust and then to memory. But what they have built and what they have achieved and what they have taught us will survive, for a while at least, until our very own generation delivers all of it to the recycle heap. We are consuming more of our earth than we in reality need to at an alarming rate. And all the while the accepted attitude is that we will not be here when it is depleted so what does it matter. We use and take and give nothing back, not to the earth, not to our society, and certainly not to each other. True, there are a few groups and individuals out there struggling to make a difference, and they are to be commended. However, there is such a concept as Too Little, Too Late.
It takes the masses!!! The “Greatest Generation” rose up as one mass and changed the course of American history forever. The masses rise and a revolution is born. It takes but one to start. It takes but one voice to raise the cry. However, the masses must continue the cry lest it die out. One match strikes a flame, but an entire forest on fire changes the landscape.
We are complacent. Too complacent. We as a generation have settled. We are content with our “Fast-Food” philosophy of life. We order our pizzas and burgers and fries and sodas and we sit on our collectively growing asses for hours on end in the hopes that we may accomplish our life’s ambition to beat the high score on some mind-numbing video game. We no longer excel at sports, or at academics, hell, except for game systems, we barely excel at anything. Our national academic scores have decreased, thus, the standard has been lowered. We are falling behind other countries in many subjects across the board. Even students at our top-rated institutions are barely competition for those at other countries’ 2nd-tier schools. Even our athletic programs have decreased. Less and less of our generation wants to get out of doors and exert themselves. At least sports teach values like team work and respect and motivation and keep the body fit. The main argument I have heard time and again in support of video games is that they improve hand-eye coordination. Be that as it may, without the degree gained from education or even the scholarship gained from sports, you will not have anything to use that wonderful hand-eye coordination on!!! We are a generation of television and games and fast food that for whatever reason does not want to engage its collective mind. That is the only point of television and video games. It plays out the scenario for you. It lives your life for you. Your mind does not have to think, only follow.
We have become weak and pitiful, and all before we are middle aged!!! That is wonderful!!! Instead of telling our children stories of defending a nation and inspiring the world, we can tell them that when we were their age, we beat the whole game on Legendary-status in less than four hours! We can tell them not how we answered the call to arms or plainly the call to do the right thing for the good of the whole, but we can tell them how we were selfish, unthinking drones. We can tell them how we got to be upwards of three hundred pounds!!! We can tell them how we left them absolutely no legacy whatsoever and that they are on their own!
IT IS TIME TO STOP THE COMPLACENCY!!! LET’S GET OFF OUR ASSES!!! GET AWAY FROM THE DAMNED VIDEO GAMES AND FAST FOOD AND DRUGS!!! QUIT HAVING YOUR LIVES DICTATED AND HANDED TO YOU ON A DIGITAL PLATTER!!! LET’S GET OUR COLLECTIVE MINDS RIGHT AND WORKING AGAIN. WE CALIM TO BE THE BEST AND GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, YET OUR OWN NUMBERS SAY OTHERWISE. DAMNIT LET’S BE THE BEST AND THE GREATEST. EXCERSISE YOUR MINDS!!! IT IS GOING TO TAKE THE MASSES. BUT HAVEN’T YOU NOTICED YET, WE ARE THE MASSES!!! IT IS UP TO US!!!