Remembering V-E Day, 75 Years Later — A “Greatest Generation” We Are Not

[Tom Paine 1949]

Andrew Bacevich is one of my favorite Conservatives. From a traditional military family, long teaching military history and political science at West Point, he is today a main spokesman for pulling back the forward U.S. military posture in the Middle East. Some say losing a son in Iraq had a profound influence on him. Others say it was his service in Vietnam. I just know I respect his views. Though not always agreeing with him, I often find his historical essays thought provoking:

V-E Day Plus 75
From a Moment of Victory to a Time of Pandemic
By Andrew Bacevich

The 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender in May 1945 ought to prompt thoughtful reflection. For Americans, V-E Day, as it was then commonly called, marked the beginning of “our times.” The Covid-19 pandemic may signal that our times are now coming to an end.
I was born less than two years after its counterpart V-J Day, marking the surrender of Imperial Japan in August 1945.... I was born and raised in the Midwest.... I am a mostly observant Catholic.... I am, so I persist in claiming, a conservative. As a young man, I served in Vietnam.

Yet let me suggest that ... various differences matter less than the fact that we ... came of age in the shadow of World War II -- or more specifically in a time when the specter of Nazi Germany haunted the American intellectual landscape. Over the years, that haunting would become the underlying rationale for the U.S. exercise of global power, with consequences that undermined the nation’s capacity to deal with the menace that it now faces....

Boomers are generally associated with having had a pampered upbringing before embarking upon a rebellious youth ... and then as adults helping ourselves to more than our fair share of all that life, liberty, and happiness had on offer. Now, preparing to exit the stage, we Boomers are passing on to those who follow us a badly damaged planet and a nation increasingly divided, adrift, and quite literally sick. A Greatest Generation we are not.

How did all this happen? Let me suggest that, to unpack American history during the decades when we Baby Boomers sashayed across the world stage, you have to begin with World War II, or more specifically, with how that war ended and became enshrined in American memory....

Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, A Greatest Generation We Are Not | TomDispatch

 

[Moonglow]

Boomers are generally associated with having had a pampered upbringing before embarking upon a rebellious youth

I had to start work at fourteen to help out the family and to afford something I like to do eat. I am a boomer..Whoop-de-doo...The older generation could take a three month confinement due to a pandemic better than today's Americans, those old timers (my Papa) went through WWI, Spanish flu, great depression and WWII, and he would have done what is necessary in today's pandemic of a mere three weeks...But I don't care what people do, I do what I need or want to do and I didn't stop for this pandemic or any of them in the past fifty years..Those people from the past I described did not consider themselves the greatest generation and left behind the same problems that we are still facing today.

 

[Gdjjr]

That's a good article- there are a couple things I could take exception to but I'll just use this since it is what I deem important in the over-all.

Addressing those challenges will require leaders able to free themselves from a past that has become increasingly irrelevant.


I take great exception to that, because, as I've recently read, and passed on; "the important lesson we learn from History is that we don't learn from it".

Full disclosure: I don't remember where I saw it or I'd give credit where due.

The Founders, while men of vision were also students of History- I'm not, in any way, shape, fashion or form comparing myself to the Founders or the author, but.... the above quote speaks volumes.

 

[Gdjjr]

Those people from the past I discribed did not consider themselves the greatest generation and left behind the same problems that we are still facing today.

Or exacerbated the problems- my immediate ancestors, with the exception of one uncle, seemed to trust the gov't- I say seemed because we never really talked about their views on the gov't- although my grandmother, my mother's mother, nearly had a stroke, when, at the ripe old age of 14, I declared myself a Republican, mainly because of what little I had seen of Goldwater- she was a true Southern Democrat-

In my life I've learned trust has to be earned, (fool me once shame on me, fool me twice shame on you, multiple offenses, past and present considered, fuck you and the horse you rode in on) I have yet to see what the District of Crminals has done to earn anyone's (other than their own) trust-

As for being the "greatest generation", that's bumper sticker bullshit- being in the right place at the right time is luck. Taking advantage of the situation is often called opportunistic. Typically by those envious of the one(s) taking advantage- however, that a part of that greatest generation off spring, like those in the District of Criminals, stack the deck against Liberty is pretty obvious and IF one does manage to outmaneuver their criminal actions that person or persons become the evil rich-

 

[basquebromance]

Thank you to all those that fought for our freedom, many (too many) paying the ultimate sacrifice. Thank you to all the men that defended our cities against air raids, worked in factories and hospitals and deciphered enemy codes. As a nation we pulled together and achieved our greatest triumph.

 

[fncceo]

To be fair, The Greatest Generation couldn't text or use an Android app to save their lives.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Let us remember that the next “WORLD WAR” will not end with “our greatest triumph” but with our end, and the end of human civilization. Trying to “Make America Great Again” through imperialist bullying and military adventures overseas will not make us “the greatest generation” but the stupidest one ... and likely the last.

 

[basquebromance]

in a related story, French resistance fighter Cécile Rol-Tanguy has just died aged 101

 

[basquebromance]

"They won back this ground for civilization to more than 170 veterans of the second World War, who join us today. You are among the greatest Americans who will ever live. You are the pride of our nation. You are the glory of our republic," Trump says last year, moving the vets to tears

Trump, Macron honor veterans of D-Day as having "saved freedom"

President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron commemorated the pivotal Allied invasion of France in 1944

www.cbsnews.com

400 WWII vets die a day. 16 million of them fought, 60K remain

 

[basquebromance]

Stalin told Churchill and FDR that if they didn't help the Soviets against the Nazis, they were cowards. that's what provoked their intervention, my friends!

 

[basquebromance]

FDR described Stalin as "a man hewn out of granite", but he thought he could chip away at that granite

 

[basquebromance]

FDR turned to stamp collecting and folk music to root out the stress of the presidency and war

he turned everything into an adventure

he was never boring...or bored

 

[basquebromance]

the Germans killed Theodore Roosevelt's son, then immediately apologized, and honored the kid

not many people know that

 

[basquebromance]

Did you know FDR died less than a month before VE Day on April 12, 1945? On May 8, 1945 President Truman had been in office only 26 days and had just moved into the White House the day prior. It was also his 61st birthday. When Truman met with reporters to discuss the surrender he dedicated the victory to his predecessor Roosevelt

 

[whitehall]

The victors write the history books. Normandy is seen as a victory even though the breakout cost the lives of more Americans than Korea and Vietnam combined. The "Battle of the Bulge" is viewed as a victory even though it was the worst military intelligence failure in history. It's insulting to the generations who fought in Korea and Vietnam to characterize the draftees who were used as cannon fodder in WW2 as the "greatest generation". American Troops are all the greatest generation. The problem is the media rather than the Military. The media decided to characterize Korea as the "forgotten war" to protect Truman and MacArthur from criticism. The media turned their backs on American Troops in Vietnam to promote a political agenda.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The victors write the history books. Normandy is seen as a victory even though the breakout cost the lives of more Americans than Korea and Vietnam combined. The "Battle of the Bulge" is viewed as a victory even though it was the worst military intelligence failure in history. It's insulting to the generations who fought in Korea and Vietnam to characterize the draftees who were used as cannon fodder in WW2 as the "greatest generation". American Troops are all the greatest generation. The problem is the media rather than the Military. The media decided to characterize Korea as the "forgotten war" to protect Truman and MacArthur from criticism. The media turned their backs on American Troops in Vietnam to promote a political agenda.

Media, military technology, politicians, society and economy —. all these things evolve and are interconnected. Of course “the victors write the history books,” but the question that this OP article examines is did we American “victors” write it wrong. Did we draw ... mistaken lessons.

The Americans that fought in WWII like the soldiers of the Vietnam War were mostly draftees, citizen soldiers — yet their experiences were entirely different. Our society’s response to those wars was also rightly very different. It sounds to me like you want to ignore those differences and pretend it was just “the media” that changed. HoChiMinh didn’t attack Pearl Harbor. Some of the real history of Vietnam you can find in my comments here: Kissinger, Nixon and Vietnam The wider world also rightly saw the U.S. playing very different roles in WWII and in Vietnam.

We must not face our very different problems of today as if we are still fighting Nazis and Japanese imperialists in a post Pearl Harbor pre-nuclear age, as if we are pure innocents in a life and death struggle with Russia and China, the Muslim world, Vietnam or Cuba or other Third World countries that oppose our policies. Of course it is also madness to think half our own people are traitors because they saw Vietnam as an imperialist war, or today vote for a different party than we do.

 

[whitehall]

Their (the draftees) experiences were entirely different and that's what makes the "greatest generation"? You could say that the Revolution was the greatest generation or the incredible suffering of the Civil War was the greatest generation or even the Great Depression was the greatest generation. It's a freaking cliche created by the media that has inserted itself into the consciousness of the ignorant generation. The "greatest generation" cliche is intended to mask the corruption, mistakes and faulty decisions of a political administration and make everybody feel good about the tragedy of WW2 that impacted everyone on the globe. It's a shame that other "greatest generations" like the one that that put a man on the moon and created the "international space station" don't get the same consideration by media types.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Don’t freak out about “the Greatest Generation.” I put this expression in quotation marks in the headline of this post precisely to indicate it is just a popular term historians and journalists sometimes use. My own father, who fought in the war, were he alive would probably not agree with it either. This OP is precisely about myths and myth-making since the 2nd World War. That said, I would never compare the “sacrifices” of NASA scientists (including Wernher von Braun), or of today’s “keyboard warriors,” with the sacrifices made by my father’s generation.

 

[whitehall]

I guess the "greatest generation" cliche is about sacrifices but what choice did they have? Bacevich endured the same profound loss and disenchantment as the greatest generation but somehow he romanticizes WW2 for some reason. I suspect it's all about politics and the media's perspective.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I think you have a point about Bacevich. He comes from a traditional, conservative military family — so a certain romanticizing of the idea of “sacrifice for country in war” comes with the territory. I have respect for such people, though I grant you the reality of every war, including WWII, is not at all romantic.