Los Gatos Weekly-Times 'Greatest Generation' failed at some things By Carl Heintze NBC Evening News anchor Tom Brokaw has written a book, The Greatest Generation, about those Americans who were born in the 1920s, lived through the Depression and World War II and made the nation what it is today. Or at least they had a lot to do with making the United States what it is today. Brokaw's thesis, which he says came to him in a kind of religious experience while walking the cliffs above Omaha Beach, is that this generation of Americans is the greatest in our history. Shades of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. It's about time for us to check out and join the heavenly choir, and we're being told we're the greatest. Better late than never, I suppose. Still I always distrust someone who lauds you while saying goodbye. It's like getting the proverbial gold watch when you retire. Well, anyway. ... Since I'm a member of this group (born in 1922), I figure I have a right to comment. Setting aside the accolades for the moment, I'd like to ask this question: Did we shape the events of the first half of the 20th century or did they shape us? Andy Rooney, commentator for another network and a member of the "greatest" himself, told Brokaw he thought it was events that made the men and women of his generation, not men and women who made it happen. In other words, any generation of Americans could rise to greatness if they were challenged by the proper set of events. I think that's partly true. Certainly neither we nor anyone else rose to greatness when challenged with Vietnam, and we (the so-called "greatest generation") never did much about racism until Martin Luther King Jr. and other black leaders forced us to act. But our biggest omission, it seems to me, was our failure to get across to our children whatever it was we had learned in getting out of the Depression and getting through World War II. Surely, there was something from this time we could have made a part of America. Instead, we produced the Vietnam War, hippies, a revolt against what we were and a falling away of faith in the established institutions we had held so dear. As the bumper sticker said, "These are the children our parents warned us about." The revolt, to be sure, was short-lived: the hippies put on ordinary clothes, cut their hair and found jobs, and the Weathermen and Weatherwomen blew themselves up or turned themselves in. The excesses gave way to the ever-rising stock market; the corporate good life with its perks and constant insecurity; ethnic cleansing and a series of religious struggles. America became a place where making money quickly became more important than changing the world. Somehow all that remains is a bad taste in the mouth. If we failed to pass on to our children what we learned, we did something much worse; we allowed them to turn their backs on what still needed to be done, to settle for less. Somehow we also let them believe there are no absolutes. Patriotism isn't all bad, but it got a bad name in Vietnam. Marriage is worth saving, as is the family, but far too many of our children have become single parents and about half have divorced. Surely that's not greatness. Why could we not have somehow gotten across to them the importance of life-long wedlock, the stability of the nuclear family? Instead we bear a great nostalgia for "what might have been." We'd love to see it come back, but we seem unable to make it happen. It's reflected in the desire for "family values," although no one seems quite sure what family values we're talking about. Somehow it also seems to have something to do with God. Somehow God got us through the Depression and the war, why is He failing us now? Or are we failing Him? I think those who tout somehow returning to the past know in their hearts they don't really want to go back to the Depression or World War II. Nostalgia is a funny thing. It blurs the corners, distorts memory and tends to make things appear not the way they were, but the way we'd like them to be. So I guess I'd have to tell Mr. Brokaw: We are shaped by events; we are less successful in using events to better our world. What we seem to need is the challenge, not the reward. So what are we to do? We don't want another Depression and starting World War III hardly seems productive. Yet there are plenty of events our children's children could use to relearn the process. We seem to have forgotten what we learned--the way to rise to the occasion. Alas, many of today's challenges are interior, not exterior threats: things like racism, poverty, global warming, pollution, the reduction of natural resources. But they are challenges, and the generation that deals with them successfully will be great, maybe the greatest. Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 27, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.