Have We Lost WWII Generation’s “Deep Knowledge?”

OPINION - 20 years ago Sunday, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of D-Day, President Ronald Reagan concluded his speech at Omaha Beach saying, “We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”

This Sunday it will be 60 years since the Allied Forces stormed the beaches and took the cliffs at Normandy in what was the defining moment of the 20th century in the battle against tyranny.

Each 10-year anniversary of that day grows more important as it becomes more distant. In fact, it grows more important because of its increasing distance in time.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, World War II veterans are dying at the rate of more than 1,000 each day. Some 16.5 million men and women served in the “Big One” but only slightly more than 4 million are still alive today.

I thought about this a little bit last year when my grandfather, a World War II Navy man, passed away. I thought about it again this weekend while watching the Memorial Day remembrances and, most particularly, the dedication of the long overdue World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

My generation, “Generation X” as it has been so dubbed by the arbiters of pop culture, got a pass. There was not a credible concern about the possibility of conscription.

I was 17 when the Berlin Wall came down signaling the effective end of communism and the rebirth of freedom in Eastern Europe, or “new” Europe as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld aptly terms it today.

Since Vietnam and the end of the Cold War going forward to our present War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, our military force has been a voluntary one.

9/11 certainly brought home the fact that there is nothing inexorable about freedom, security or even America as we know it. There are people out there who are at war with our ideals and we ignore that reality at our own peril.

Nevertheless, I’m left wondering whether or not my generation and subsequent ones dismiss the axiom that “freedom isn’t free” as just old an platitude trotted out on national holidays to honor old people who fought in some wars over some things some time ago?

The answer is probably mixed. Certainly there are those in every generation that answer the call to give of themselves to provide for the freedom of another.

The more than 800 American soldiers that have perished (31 from Illinois) and the 4,600-plus that have been wounded fighting to successfully free 26 million people from the clutches of a murderous dictatorial regime in Iraq are testament to this fact.

But compare those numbers to the World War II figures: More than 405,000 soldiers died in World War II, another 671,846 were wounded in action.

Any wonder why they call them the “greatest generation?” Not just for the staggering sacrifice in terms of lives lost and lives forever changed but because that generation literally saved the world from tyranny and an entire race of people from extinction.

Would my generation be willing to make such a sacrifice if the stakes were similarly high today? And, quite frankly, aren’t they?

The tenor of the public discourse about President Bush’s handling of the War on Terrorism since 9/11 leaves me wondering.

No speculation is needed about our men and women in uniform. There is an amazing fortitude to their spirit. I watched the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS on Monday and one of the segments was a tribute to those who had been wounded, who had lost limbs, while serving our country in Iraq.

The moral clarity and the sense of purpose of the young men profiled at the concert was chilling and awe-inspiring. How else to describe a 20-year old who has to learn to walk with two prosthetic legs?

When I was 20, my biggest concern was getting into the classes I wanted in college. Some of these young men, whose lives have been changed forever by a mortar shell at the age of 20, as concert host Ossie Davis said, wonder if a woman will ever find them attractive, if they will ever have a families?

That same indomitable spirit that was on display in the Mall in Washington, D.C. on Monday night defeated Nazism and ushered in a period of prosperity, even during the Cold War period, for America unlike any the world has ever seen 60 years ago this Sunday.

I turn again to the Great Communicator. From President Reagan’s memorable remarks at Point De Hoc in 1984,

“The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.”

In reflecting on the upcoming 60th Anniversary of D-day, I wonder if we, the civilian population, have lost that “deep knowledge” of which President Reagan spoke and that commitment to a higher purpose embodied by our armed forces then and now?

Showing a picture of one protester and painting a whole generation with the same brush is as dishonest as if I were to claim that Snoop dog represents Xers. Or if I were to post some Xer's picture holding the same sign and saying that that fringe dweller's represntative of most of his generation. It's cute but not honest.

"Like I pointed out before they (GG)were simply in many cases just naive"

Which is it, were they naive of founts of great wisdom...it can't be both.

"They (GG) never deliberately set out to undermine America and all the values that makes it great".

Roe v. Wade, the welfare state, the immigration disaster, the destruction of industry, the downward drive in mass media/culture etc...all GG gifts to sustaining the character of America. You have no way of divining intention on anyone elses's part.

"I have great parents even though they are boomers but I am the exception to the rule."

"I am the exception"? A bit narcissisistic and, I will state wrong. Your parents raised a whiner who casts himself as victim.

And, btw, what are you doing personally in our current war? Waiting to be drafted?

But there are many times more baby boomers who are living on the "fringe" as you put it stuck back in the 60's than Xers behaving as Snoop Dog.

"Like I pointed out before they (GG)were simply in many cases just naive"

Which is it, were they naive of founts of great wisdom...it can't be both.

This article and myself praise the courage and valor of the GG more than their wisdom, But who says you can't be both. They had to wisdom to rise up to meet the threat of fascism but socially and politically they were naive.

"They (GG) never deliberately set out to undermine America and all the values that makes it great".

OK, We are in agreement about the GG.

However the baby boomers are not only not trying to fix/reverse those things but instead they took them to even further extremes.

Roe v. Wade: The actual decision really has little to do with the obscene number of abortions in the country as abortion was legal in many(most?) places before. It was the baby boomers who made a baby a "Choice" and brought forth the abortion on demand culture.

The welfare state: umm, Who just voted themselves a prescription drug benefit?

Immigration: The baby boomers took that disaster and gave us multiculturism

Destruction of industry: LOL! "Friends of corporate America" is not the phrase anybody thinks of when they think of the Baby Boomers.

That's why the Baby Boomers are the worst generation, They took the worst traits of the GG and took them to even worse extremes while rejecting their best traits like patriotism, sacrifice and family values.

"I have great parents even though they are boomers but I am the exception to the rule."

"I am the exception"? A bit narcissisistic and, I will state wrong.

And many Xs and Ys that suffered through your divorces and/or were latched keyed and came through your educational system will disagree with you.

Your parents raised a whiner who casts himself as victim.

Typical baby boomer self absorption. I'm suppose work to pay off probably a 45 trillion dollar debt by the time you are all gone and pay for you baby boomer's viagra, All the while baby boomer elitist take more and more of my freedoms away and work to undermine my country and all the values that make it great and I'm supposed to be quite and happily go along with it because you baby boomers are just so wonderful and so much smarter than all of us and done so much for this country or else it's called whining?

Sorry but I don't think so.

And, btw, what are you doing personally in our current war? Waiting to be drafted?

Well for one I am not spitting on troops or calling them baby killers.

Secondly I'm 34 years old so they wouldn't take me even if I tried to sign up, But if my country needed me I would go in a heartbeat.

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