Far Greater Generation

Tom Brokaw may not have coined the title "Greatest Generation", but he certainly gave it a permanent place in our psyche.

I don't contend a single qualification of the Americans who lived and served and experienced the sacrifices and the decisions of World War II.

They deserve all the thanks and honor we can give them.

But as my fellow Nebraskan, Dr. Mary Pipher observed in her book The Shelter of Each Other--Rebuilding Our Families, when the wolf is at the door and the enemy is external, coming together is so much easier to do.

When the wolf is inside, it's a totally different deal.

I fought the Cold War in the Vietnam era. I've actually heard WWII veterans say in front of Vietnam veterans, "I fought the GOOD war." I found it gracious of the Vietnam vets that they kept their silence and didn't shout, "Excuse me, but we didn't get any more of a choice than you did."

I've had it stuck in my face for much of my life that I'm a "baby boomer". As if I had a choice. I'm supposed to be one of America's first worthless generation, a generation that lost America's first war, the generation of free love and no morals. The generation of Americans that expected the government to do everything for them. Totally spoiled. Well...

I've got a beef with a few things. The Greatest Generation did great things in WWII. But it was also that generation that got us into Vietnam and then could not figure out what the hell to do with it or how to be honest about it. A guerilla war for national unification was constantly fought with the mentality (on America's part) of a traditional European land war with fronts and opposing powers wanting to annex adjacent territory. It was none of those. Greatest Generation was not great enough to see that or to make an appropriate course correction if they did. Political calculations colored everything but were colorblind to the color of blood--my generation's blood.

Even greatness has limitations.

Our country, our culture, our families, our political system and our economy and our churches and our entire way of life are threatened today by insidious enemies from within even as our way of life threatens the entire planet without. So far, we are not responding well at all. We are mostly like the grumbling Israelites longing for "the flesh pots of Egypt." We're looking back. We still like Ike and wanna go back there.

We haven't found our Moses to show the only way: forward.

I don't know who the parent was who left their child's note at the Oregon Vietnam Memorial in May. I wonder if the adult(s) involved had any more of an idea how to spell, construct a simple declarative sentence or to reason than the child who made these letters in crayon. At least the kid had the wisdom and the courage to say something, whatever it means.

So here's my response to the accusations that my boomer roots and birth date have made me a substandard American:

1. We've never bounced a check.
2. We've never been in jail.
3. We've never been in credit card trouble.
4. We've been married to only each other for nearly 40 years.
5. We've raised a daughter who has been employed and self-sufficient since she graduated from college over 8 years ago.
6. Our house is old and paid for.
7. Our cars are old and paid for.
8. We pay our taxes.
9. We inform ourselves and vote.
10. We have never collected a dime of unemployment compensation.
11. We have household income at the poverty level.
12. We go to church and actually provide church and meals for people who are homeless and mentally ill.
13. We've never sued anyone, but I have helped to defend others wrongly accused and sued in court.
14. We've both interrupted education tracks and careers to serve our country and live overseas at well below poverty level.
15. We've never expected the government to provide for us.
16. We've let our elected representatives know repeatedly what we think is right and necessary.

None of this deserves an award or a certificate of achievement. It's simply the minimum standard we should expect of everyone who lives here.

We've got serious problems here in the USA, and they are bringing the nation to its knees. We have actually glorified war over responsibility.

These problems will not be solved by entertainment and thinking no deeper than 140-character tweets. They will not be solved by spending even more money on election campaigns.

"Getting the message out" is not the impediment to moving forward. Being clueless or careless is.

Crushing burdens have been handed to Americans under the age of 35, burdens which Jean and I have decried in every way we could because we foresaw them. We are not ready to quit, but we are discouraged. VERY discouraged.

And here's my take on things. If Americans under the age of 35 can figure out how to salvage the mess that's been left to them, they will far, far exceed the Greatest Generation in imagination, courage and sacrifice. They will indeed have earned the title "Far Greater Generation".

By comparison to what today's younger Americans face, the challenges of WWII were flat out idiot-simple.

Younger Americans, we're here to help. Let's talk.

Time we got going. Waiting makes none of the tasks ahead easier or simpler.

Prayers accepted and appreciated. Thanks!

Roger

Greatest Generation

Happy Spring!

May it be so where you are.

I've often pondered the term "greatest generation" made a household word by Tom Brokaw's books on the Americans who fought in World War II and the ones at home who came together as a nation to bear that sacrifice and keep the effort going. It was an enormous undertaking against enormously evil war, ideology and destruction. We can never repay that effort, but we can certainly re-invest the gifts that the effort gave us all. Or, we can throw it all away...

A few years ago I traveled to Penn Yan, NY to set up a machine, calibrate it and train the folks at Penn Yan Aero Service to operate it. Next year, I went back to re-calibrate and recertify them. They are on their own now and doing well with it. On my visits I had opportunity to stroll around this quaint central New York town named for the Pennsylvania Yankee who founded it. It's hilly farming country around Keuka Lake. Up on the high plateau to the north of town are large settlements of simple Christian farm families, some of whom still travel by horse and buggy. Others have adopted the internal comubstion engine but not rubber tires. I saw very late model John Deere diesel tractors on farms, and most of the tractors had enclosed cabs with heaters, perhaps even air conditoning. But they all had the oddest thing--locally fabricated steel wheels, front and rear. Rubber tires would be "hochmutig", pretentiuous.

In a Penn Yan memorial park there is the obligatory statuary and memorial to war dead, and the rusted WWII Howitzer with scratched, faded oilve drab paint and cracked rubber tires. And then there is the sobering statistic on a plaque. 2,000 residents of Yates County served in the Civil War--at a time when the population was about 20,000. One of every 10. In some households, it was every male member above the age of 14. Over 600,000 died in that war. For what?

My generation, the Vietnam Generation, has often been maligned as being weak, misguided, disloyal, for asking why the war being fought was being fought, for asking where we were going, for refusing to fight in it, and for also fighting and dying in it. Three times as many as died in the war later died by their own hand via suicide as a result of the war. We weren't wrong to question. We failed to question enough.

And the Greatest Generation who were then in charge of the war and our country had no answers and no solutions. Even the rightest people can get it wrong sometimes.

But in my book, the title Greatest Generation will much more aptly be bequeathed to the Amercians who are today under the age of 35, IF...

IF they can look at the fiscal mess we are in globally and find a way through it that doesn't lead to the collapse of civilization and World War III.

IF they can do this while at the same time dealing with global warming, climate change and the collapse of world ecosystems in a drastically overpopulated and exhausted world.

IF they can do all this and avert famines and plagues.

That's a lot to ask. I suggest we start praying for our children and start talking with them about the great things they will need to do by beginning now.

It seems impossible to do some days. It is impossible unless we take the first step: STARTING WHAT WE NEED TO DO.

What do YOU think that is?

Shalom,

Pastor Roger