The Greatest Generation

There is a reason we call them the greatest generation. They spent a childhood with tightened belts and empty belly’s. At night the news reported on Hooverville’s and dust bowls. You had to be tough and scrappy. America was a nation of towns and hamlets strung together with two tracks of dirt called a road. You knew your neighborhood - shared a pew under the same steeple and sung the same hymns of praise to our lord.

There is a reason we call them the greatest generation. Before most turned 18 they were loosing friends or family in places with funny sounding names like Tarawa, Batann and Normandy. Not all would fight, but when the nation called for duty, this generation could build, engineer, plan, execute, and rally to the cause saving and scrounging everything from tires, to matches, even bacon grease. All share and played their part.

There is a reason we call them the greatest generation. Coming home they made families, very large, fruitful, happy families. In front of their televisions they would watch as we broke the bonds of gravity and step foot on the moon. They would cross the country in campers on the new interstate.

There is a reason we call them the greatest generation. They took the world of tomorrow and made it what we know today. And when the children grown in ways they might never understand, they only asked what every parent asks: to forgive them of what they got wrong, and love them for what they did right.

There is a reason we look to them as the greatest generation, but they are too humble to accept the title, too proud of their offspring to think they will not surpass their achievements. We can only make them one this solemn promise, that we will one day make them proud.