10 things Generation X won’t tell you

Yahoo Finance ^ | July 1, 2014 | Quentin Fottrell

[C19fan]

1. We’re poorer than our parents were at our age

Few people have been through as many economic ups and downs as the members of Generation X. Born between 1965 and 1980, any entered the workforce during the boom years of the Clinton administration—but then along came 9/11 and, a few years later, the Great Recession.

[NorthMountain]

Many of the men who fought in Viet Nam, or who served in the military elsewhere during the 1960s and early 1970s, were drafted.

Many of the men who fought WWII volunteered.

Now ... EVERY Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine who joined in the 1980s up to the present day, is a 100% volunteer, several times over.

[Safetgiver]

They raised hippies, commies, socialists and perverts.....Troll, Woodrow Wilson started it by evading the Constitution and instituting the fifth branch of Government, the bureaucracy - which now runs the government. Go someplace else (back to DU)and make sure you enjoy your self onanism, troll.

[RinaseaofDs]

The comments are interesting.

[ansel12]

The “greatest generation” destroyed America, who do you think passed the most destructive legislation and court decisions and Immigration laws, and founded NOW, and lost Vietnam while operating it as a meat grinder.

As far as the 60s, people don’t realize that they skip over the entire generation of Jane Fonda, the Beatles, and Bill Ayers, to get to blaming the boomers, a generation so young and powerless through the 60s and 70s, that 1984 was the first presidential election that all boomers were old enough to vote in.

The boomers were not running America in the 1960s, and they weren’t even running popular culture during that era.

Just start looking at the roots of our modern ills, and tracing them back to the men who created them, the Warren Court, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, the Generals, the University presidents, the NAACP, NOW, the ACLU, the George Meanys, and those old men that ruled from the 1930s through the 1990s.

[BenLurkin]

Spelling. That’s so “Old School”.

[ansel12]

The actual situation is that the Vietnam era Army was 75% volunteers, while the Army that fought in WWII was 93% draftees, and all branches of the military drafted in WWII, including the Navy, during Vietnam only the Marines and Army drafted.

About 70% of the war dead in WWII were draftees, about 70% of the Vietnam war dead were volunteers.

Today’s tiny military has had to desperately seek females and pay out billions, to make up for the dismal enlistment enthusiasm, at one point during our current wars, the U.S. Army was accepting 42 year old women.

[Tailback]

My Gen-X classmates and myself are surprised to hear that our participation in the Panama invasion, The Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the shameful Kosovo campaign doesn’t count.

I spent 4.5 years active army and another 16 or so National Guard. Out of 26 or so males in my HS class, half (voluntarily) joined the military in some form. Of course, with the economy that was handed to us, that was the only way to get a job...

[trisham]

"One nation under God.."

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[napscoordinator]

I did spell it “ladder”....see you Boomers are screwing with us Xer’s AGAIN! lol. I think you called someone at FR and had them change my spelling.............

[NorthMountain]

As usual, your comments only present partial truth.

Regarding the high percentage of draftees in WWII ... I suggest that you should read Executive Order 9279, signed by President Roosevelt on 05DEC42. Try what this order was about and most particularly WHY this order was issued. Try to understand both what it mandated and what it prohibited.

Regarding the war dead ... Cite your sources, please.

Your final comment is inane, and completely ignores the 1980s and 1990s.

Do you even have a point in any of your comments? On the one hand, you praise the current military from Viet Nam to Afghanistan for volunteering, then you turn around and trash-talk about 'dismal enlistment enthusiasm'. Make up your mind. Your comments on the draft in WWII are simply ignorant.

[napscoordinator]

You can sure tell there are a ton of Boomers on this thread. lol.

[Kenton]

With regards to the Vietnam War: Would you really characterize that as an opportunity to display valor?

I think that at the time, displaying "valor" was pretty far down on the list of things motivating me. By my generation, the notion that we were fighting to accrue personal glory seemed anachronistic.

But hey, you weren't part of that and I don't expect you to understand it. But for the guys that signed up and went rather than dodging the draft, they went where they were sent and did what was asked of them, and deserve your respect.

I guess my point is, when you denigrate an entire generation with such a broad brush in order to blame them for your lack of success, you're making a mistake, and it makes you sound kind of... immature.

[ansel12]

So you felt the need to launch a personal attack, and a rather strange one at that, I guess I dared disagree with you on some other thread in the past perhaps.

The rest of your post was gibberish and confusing.

I am baffled at your obvious anger, though.

[Buckeye McFrog]

No generation has seen such financial ups and downs? The generation of the 1920’s and 1930’s might just dispute that

Yep. My grandmother was one of 11 children. The only one who remained employed throughout the Depression (she worked as a dental assistant). She did not marry until age 35 because literally she could not afford to. Most of her stories involved family members who lost everything they had in banks that never re-opened or more affluent people who could not face life without money and jumped out of windows.

[alexander_busek]

You'll just have to remind me what great world-saving crusade GenX took a pass on. By my reckoning, they've fought in more conflicts with less support than any previous generation. The WWII generation can be congratulated for doing some very obvious hammer-meets-nail work in fighting back against declared enemies who foolishly attacked the one country which could easily outproduce the entire rest of the planet.

Again, let me remind you all that I am by no means attempting to denigrate subsequent generations (after the so-called "Greatest Generation"). I am not claiming that any subsequent generation shirked its military duty. On the contrary, I'm pointing out that the "Greatest Generation" - through no merit of its own - was given a once-in-a-millenium chance to battle satanic forces for "mother and apple pie." Through no merit of their own, they were able to win the trifecta of 1) in a "desperate undertaking" conquering an almost equally-matched demonic enemy and thus returning home as unquestioned victors; 2) which coincided with the U.S.A. attaining superpower status; and 3) riding a demographic wave as a consequence of which there was almost always full employment and high economic growth. What's not to like about that?

In contrast, subsequent generations fought in - partly - highly unpopular wars against pipsqueak enemies - where's the glory in that? (I DON'T dispute that the job needed to be done, but invading a tiny island country like Grenada or using high-tech superweapons to pulverize a vastly outnumbered enemy who poses no real threat to the American heartland just isn't as glorious.

Sometimes, being in the right place at the right time - even though unearned - just is incredibly propitious.

Regards,

[FreedomPoster]

You left out the legion of voters entitled to massive government handouts. There was a little of that in the Depression, but nothing as big and systemic as there is today.

[ansel12]

In some ways, valor was in even greater display in Vietnam, as soldiers fought in smaller units often as tiny as 5 men, or in isolated outposts, and were more often required to display an individual courage.

There were a lot of MOH earned in Vietnam.

[Pelham]

“I listened to my grandparents and great parents talk about the Great Depression - our current troubles do not compare.”

That’s for sure. My parents are in their 90s and they have vivid memories of the Great Depression. They were fortunate to either live on farms or have close relatives who did. People then really worried about getting their next meal. They wore patched clothes and shoes because there was no money to buy new ones. My father says you can’t imagine how bleak it was.

[Army Air Corps]

Excellent point. During the Depression, the majority of the unemployed sought work. Now, we have a shocking number of people already on some form of federal “assistance” with legions more looking for some way to get on the Federal teat.