When I was a young boy we all lived with what would later be called the greatest generation — make that The Greatest Generation.
We were visited on occasion by three uncles in the Navy, three in the Army and a cousin who was a Marine. The latter was lost to us on Saipan. Later another uncle, again a Marine, was lost in Korea. Numerous aunts, uncles and cousins worked building airplanes and ships both in Texas and the Northwest. Little question with the sacrifices so many were making, and the lives lost in defeating our enemies, they deserve to be thought of and called The Greatest Generation!
They weren’t asked to do something so simple as wear a mask or stay a few feet apart, they were asked, millions of them, to give up their private lives, wives and children, lovers, and their pursuits in the adult work world. Their freedom to do as they wished was gone “for the duration,” as they said at that time.
For all it was two or three years, for many four or five years, and some, like my uncle and cousin, didn’t “come home” until their bodies were discovered years later.
Now in my declining years, my countrymen are being asked to do a few very easy things to defeat the worst enemy that has beset our country since World War II, none of which will inconvenience them much, and certainly not cost any lives. They are declining because they claim to have the right to do exactly as they wish, their countrymen be damned.
Tell that to the men and women who sacrificed years and sometimes their very lives while defeating Germany and Japan.
The Greatest Generation answered their call, put their lives on hold, risked death, and saved our country. I’m hard-pressed to think of my current countrymen as other than “the least generation” as they most assuredly are.
Wayne Bickley, Sandy