1944: 18 year olds stormed the beach at Normandy into almost certain death.

2019: 18 year olds need a safe space because words hurt their feelings.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: George43,

Again, not all of them. We just a have megahorn for those that do.

Just as that megahorn can be used to make huge generalizations like this.

I am a little tired of huge generalizations about people and where they live these days.

If and when we need them, many will be there. I am pretty certain. I pray they are not needed.

Bless those that stand ready now.

Click bait title

Sorry armful, I will be more careful.

quote:

Originally posted by George43:
Sorry armful, I will be more careful.

Well, "words of wisdom" or "1944 vs. 2019" or "generation comparison", etc. can still be edited into the title when you click the "edit" button.

Every generation has their losers and winners. I don't paint all young people with the same stroke. This generation of young people has plenty that are just as great!

quote:

Originally posted by tgun45:
Every generation has their losers and winners. I don't paint all young people with the same stroke. This generation of young people has plenty that are just as great!

I agree. But in line w/ George's point, I think today, there's less cream and it can be harder for them to rise to the top, geographically speaking.

quote:

Originally posted by George43:
Sorry armful, I will be more careful

But not about spelling your name correctly.

Nobody is perfect!

quote:

Originally posted by George43:
Nobody is perfect!

Yeah, ZSMICHEL! Nobody's prefect.

AFAIK, the troops in Vietnam were in their late teen, those in WWII were adults.

0-0

quote:

AFAIK, the troops in Vietnam were in their late teen, those in WWII were adults.

Yeah he is correct. Pretty embarassing when the correct answer comes from Argentina. I bet he even knows that the Germans did not bomb Pearl Harbor.

Generalizations don't mean all that much when you can pick and choose on a whim:

1969:


1991:

I am not a member of the so-called “greatest generation,” but my parents and many of their friends and associates as I was growing up were. My father was also a career soldier, so most of those friends and associates were career soldiers or their wives. My father enlisted in the Army before Pearl Harbor, probably because his father had served in the Spanish-American War and his uncles had been in Europe in World War I. During the war my mother left home in the Midwest to become a welder in a shipyard. When I enlisted for my 23-year career in the Army, many senior officers and NCOs were still WW II veterans, and that was true even during my tour in Vietnam.

I have also read countless histories of the World War II era about everything from grand strategy and the war’s causes to individual combat experiences and life in the United States.

As a consequence of all that, I have viewed with some bemusement the mythology that has grown up around that generation in general, and World War II veterans in particular. While it is true that US culture was far different in many ways than it is now, many things about humans and human nature were just the same. I don’t read books and other histories to prepare myself to debate issues like this and therefore I can’t recite chapter and verse of what I know, but I do know that not everyone of that era was a paragon of virtue and wisdom—or even fortitude.

As examples of what I’m referring to I recommend the “Liberation Trilogy” by Rick Atkinson or The Darkest Year: The American Home Front 1941-1942 by William Klingaman. Atkinson points out many of the seldom-recognized aspects of American combat in the European Theater that have been ignored by most historians, from blunders at the top to huge desertion rates among soldiers and even the large numbers of combatants who were rendered unfit for duty at various times due to “psychological injuries.” Klingaman describes how in the year following Pearl Harbor the nation was hardly fully behind the war effort in attitude or action.

But yes, it is certainly true that many, and perhaps most, Americans had to put up with conditions that are unimaginable today to almost all of us, including our war fighters. That does not mean, however, that most of the younger generations could not survive such conditions if they were put in them. Tough times and conditions make tough people, but the incredibly and unprecedented easy times in the US today don’t. A few members here describe how they have attempted to make their children and themselves tough, but that is very rare because it’s not required of the vast majority of us.

And in some specific ways things are tougher than they were when I was starting out in life as an adult. When I read about the preadmission requirements top colleges have as compared with 50+ years ago, I am humbled in thinking of how poorly I would have been prepared to meet such standards if they had been common then. The same is true of many aspects of military training.

I know a mid-20s man who is going through the process of joining Army Special Forces. He has already been through two rigorous preselection courses, each with attrition rates of 75% or more just to see if he should be allowed to attend the “Q” Course. And he will also be required to go through the Ranger course before the Q Course as well. Even being accepted for the selection courses was aided by other factors, including the fact that he is studying Arabic and Russian on his own. On the other hand, a former Special Forces friend tells how in the 1990s men volunteered for SF and were sent directly to the Q Course just so they could get back to the US and out of serving in Germany. And it was even easier before that. In 1968 a senior NCO tried to recruit me for Special Forces by telling me that if I volunteered I could pass the one big hurdle, jump school, by attending the one in Vietnam rather than at Fort Benning.

I’m not defending the state of the Nation today because there are many things about our society and culture that discourage and even frighten me, but broad brush characterizations are seldom accurate.

Added: And there are just as many myths about the Vietnam war and its veterans, if not more. One is that the US combatants were over-represented by young, poor, and uneducated minority members. Another book I recommend is Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History by B. G. Burkett.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigfreund,

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Again, not all of them. We just a have megahorn for those that do. .

< mic drop >

World War II veterans were in teens or early adulthood during the Great Depression which preceded it, so many of them knew economic hardship as well. My father (1919-1994) was right in the middle of the Dust Bowl.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
World War II veterans were in teens or early adulthood during the Great Depression which preceded it, so many of them knew economic hardship as well. My father (1919-1994) was right in the middle of the Dust Bowl.

According to several web sources I found, the average age of WWII soldiers was 26.

flashguy