Every generation has its share of men who fully live the art of manliness. But there may never have been a generation when the ratio of honorable men to slackers was higher than the one born between 1914 and 1929. These were the men that grew up during the Great Depression. They’re the men who went off to fight in the Big One. And they’re the men who came home from that war and built the nations of the Western world into economic powerhouses. They knew the meaning of sacrifice, both in terms of material possessions and of real blood, sweat, and tears. They were humble men who never bragged about what they had done or been through. They were loyal, patriotic, and level-headed. They were our Greatest Generation.
Tom Brokaw gave them that name, and while it’s a bold claim, I wholly support it. They weren’t perfect by any means, of course, but as a whole they were a cut above the rest. One of the inspirations for Kate and I starting the Art of Manliness was our grandfathers. When I looked at them, and then at the men of today, the chasm of manliness seemed jarring. These are men cut from a different cloth of manliness; they simply don’t build them like that anymore. Their extraordinary manliness is not something you can scientifically measure. But you can sure feel it. And you can see it in old pictures. It seems every man back then was dashingly handsome; their manliness practically leaps off the page.
When I was taking a tour of the USS Slater in Albany last summer, Uncle Buzz and I were looking at the tiny, closet-sized kitchen where a couple of men prepared meals for hundreds of sailors as the ship rocked to and fro, and at the giant guns the men used to blast the enemy and knock planes from the sky. One tends to picture 30 year old guys doing that stuff; Tom Hanks and Co. always leap to mind. But a lot of them were just 18, fresh from the prom and varsity football.
In Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation, he remembers his mother telling him the story of the day Gordon Larsen came into the post office where she worked. Larsen was typically a cheerful and popular member of their community, but that day he had stopped in to complain about the rowdiness of the teenagers the night before, which had been Halloween. Brokaw’s mother was surprised at his tone and asked him good naturedly, “Oh Gordon, what were you doing when you were seventeen?” Gordon looked at her squarely in the eye and said, “I was landing at Guadalcanal.” He then turned and left the post office. These were men who were surely mature beyond their years.
There’s a saying that each generation is most like their grandparent’s. And while we’re not there yet, I do see a lot of people these days who are dusting off the values of the Greatest Generation and embracing them once again. What were those values? Today I’d like to take an opportunity to enumerate a few of the Greatest Generation’s lessons in manliness, using some of my personal observations along with various stories and quotes taken from Brokaw’s book.
Lesson # 1: Take Personal Responsibility for Your Life
While today’s generation often shirks responsibility as too much work, the Greatest Generation relished the chance to step up to the plate and test their mettle. One son of a WWII Medal of Honor winner remembers of his dad and his peers, “For them, responsibility was their juice. They loved responsibility. They took it head-on, and anytime they could get a task and be responsible, that was what really got em’ going.”
And when the Greatest Generation accepted responsibility for something, they also accepted all the consequences of that decision, whether good or bad. They were not a generation of whiners or excuse makers. They took pride in personal accountability. In a time where individuals and businesses reach for a bailout or the easy fix of bankruptcy to make things right, stories like that of Wesley Ko inspire. Soon after the war, Ko started a printing business. After 35 years of working hard to transform it into a successful company, he decided to relocate his business from Philadelphia to upstate New York. Ko personally guaranteed the 1.3 million dollar loan needed to make the move. The transition did not go as expected, and Ko’s company faced several setbacks; after only a year, he was forced to go out of business. Ko said, “It was a big decision making time. I couldn’t retire. I hadn’t taken out Social Security. So at the age of seventy I had to go get a job and start paying back that million-dollar loan. I just didn’t feel comfortable with declaring bankruptcy. I just didn’t think it was the honorable thing to do, even though it would have been easier.”
Lesson #2: Be Frugal
If your grandparents are anything like mine, then their house is stuffed with doodads and boxes of stuff. They have a sort of pack rat mentality because they grew up in the Great Depression where the next canister of oats or pair of pants was not guaranteed. They learned to live on less and be grateful for the things they had, no matter how humble. It didn’t take a new Wii to brighten their Christmas morning; an orange at the bottom of a stocking was enough to knock their socks off.
This was not the generation that purchased Corvettes to soothe their mid-life crisis, nor the generation that equated success with the purchase of a McMansion. This was the generation that was thrilled to move into the small houses of Levittown, which at 750 square feet were as big as some people’s garages are today.
One of the mottos of the Greatest Generation was “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Of course, it’s hard to “make it do” if you don’t know how to fix it, and thus handiness was also central to this generation’s frugality.
Tom Brokaw remembers this about his own dad:
“My father, Red Brokaw, was a blue-ribbon member of that fix-it generation. My mother learned not to say aloud what she needed, say a new ironing board, because my father would immediately build her one. She liked to buy something from the store occasionally. When I was a young man in need of spending money I mentioned that I could mow many more lawns if I had a power mower. I had a snazzy new model from Sears Roebuck in mind. My father went to his workshop and built a mower using an old washing machine motor, welded pipes for handles, a hand-tooled blade, and discarded toy wagon wheels mounted on plywood platform. He painted it all black and it was a formidable machine. At first I was embarrassed, but then as it drew admirers I was proud of its homespun place in a store-bought world.”
Lesson #3: Be Humble
Typical of the Greatest Generation is the story of a son or daughter who finds a war medal stashed in the attic after their father passes, he having never told them about it. Even if their exploits had been brave and heroic, the Greatest Generation rarely talked about the war, both because of the difficulty in remembering such carnage, but also from the sense that they had simply been fulfilling their duty, and thus had no reason to brag.
Brokaw observes: “The World War II generation did what was expected of them. But they never talked about it. It was part of the Code. There’s no more telling metaphor than a guy in a football game who does what’s expected of him-makes an open-field tackle-then gets up and dances around. When Jerry Kramer threw the block that won the Ice Bowl in ‘67, he just got up and walked off the field.”
Lesson #4: Love Loyally
The men of the Greatest Generation took their marriage vows seriously. Brokaw wrote, “It was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option. I can’t remember one of my parents’ friends who was divorced. In the communities where we lived it was treated as a minor scandal.” The numbers bear Brokaw’s anecdotal evidence out: of all the new marriages in 1940, 1 in 6 ended in divorce. By the late 1990’s, that number was 1 in 2.
This was a time where there was no hanging out or “hooking up.” Men asked women on real dates, and had serious intentions in doing so. When a particular gal caught a man’s heart, he proposed, and they got hitched. And they were married for the next 60 years.
Peggy and John Assenzio had the kind of commitment to marriage typical of the Greatest Generation. They were married right before John headed off to basic training. Peggy kept her husband constantly in her thoughts while he was away. “I never went to sleep until I wrote John a letter. I wrote every single day. I wouldn’t break the routine because I thought it would keep him safe.” When John got home, he and Peggy picked up right where they left off. John would sometimes have nightmares about the war, and Peggy was always there to comfort him. John said, “The war helped me to love Peggy more, if that’s possible. To appreciate her more.” Their commitment to each other was unshakeable. Peggy believed that young couples today, “don’t fight enough. It’s too easy to get a divorce. We’ve have our arguments, but we don’t give up. When my friends ask whether I ever considered divorce, I remind them of the old saying, ‘We’ve thought about killing each other, but divorce? Never.”
The cynical among us are apt to think that while the divorce rate was low, that simply means that more men were stuck in unhappy marriages. These days we’re quick to think that anyone who gets married in their early 20’s and is married for decades after that, is bound to be living a life of quiet desperation. Yet I’ve met a lot of Greatest Generation couples and almost all of them are and were quite happy together. They’re companions and best friends. What’s their secret? The answer can really be found in changing expectations. As Brokaw observes, “When they got married and began families it was not a matter of thinking, “Well, let’s see how this works out.” Some would argue that marriages were less happy because divorce wasn’t an option. But could it be that the opposite was true? That with the divorce option off the table the whole tenor of your marriage would change? Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t think there was an escape hatch, and you knew that whatever bumps in the road you hit, you had to work through them together.
Lesson #5: Work Hard
In war, these men had learned to focus on the objective at hand and not give up until that objective and the mission as a whole was accomplished. When they got home, they carried that focus over to the world of work. They didn’t fall into the fallacy that Mike Rowe has been busy denouncing, that you have to find “your passion” to be happy. They could find happiness in any job they did, because they weren’t just working for personal, self-fulfillment; they labored for a bigger purpose: to give their families the financial security they hadn’t enjoyed growing up.
As soon as they graduate college, many men today want the things it took our parents and grandparents 30 years to acquire. But the Greatest Generation knew that going into the debt was not the way to get the things you want. They understood that the good things in life must be earned by honest toil.
Lesson #6: Embrace Challenge
The Greatest Generation wasn’t the greatest despite the challenges they faced, but because of them. Today many men shirk challenge and difficult pursuits, believing that the easier life is, the happier they’ll be. But our grandfathers knew better. They knew that one cannot have the bitter without the sweet, and that true happiness comes from overcoming the kind of challenges that build character and refine the soul. The challenges they experienced made their joy all the more sweet because it was tinged with the gratitude of knowing how easily it could all have been taken away.
Image by iamthelorax
Lesson #7: Don’t Make Life So Damn Complicated
If there’s a common thread in these lessons, it’s having a common sense and a level-headed approach to life. In our day, when men are obsessing about finding themselves, their holy grail of a woman, and their “passion,” the Greatest Generation’s uncomplicated approach to life is refreshing. They didn’t go on a diet, they simply ate whole food; they didn’t exercise, they worked around the house; they didn’t obsess about their relationships, they just found a gal they loved and married her. They always looked sharp, but never fussed with fashion trends. They didn’t mull over which appliance better suited their personality and image, they just bought the machine that worked the best. They didn’t think about how to get things done, they just got em’ done. When Joe Foss, a celebrated and daring WWII pilot and then governor of South Dakota was asked if he missed his younger days, he said, “Oh no. I’m not a guy who missed anything from anywhere. I’ve always been a guy who just gets up and goes.” Instead of spending you time navel gazing your life away, just get up and go!
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My grandfather was the navigator on a dive bomber in the Pacific Theatre of WWII. My own problems today pale into insignificance when you consider his daily life consisted of accelerating towards the ground in a small metal box with a bunch of high explosives strapped to it.
Amen and amen. My grandfather embodies all of these qualities. And he’s just the man. He just is.
Awesome post. We can learn a lot from these great men and apply their manly qualities to our own lives.
Thanks for a great post. Valuable lessons, everyone can learn from and a great tribute to our fathers and grandfathers.
I wish more people would realize what that generation had, inspire on it, learn from it. Instead people today chose to throw everything away, give up at work, minimum effort, give up on relationships the second the boat sways slightly.
We’re losing something really important as people, it will make us bland, boring, and useless if we continue doing what we do. Too much dreaming, just get up and get things done.
Let’s not forget that we have a duty to pass these values on! Unless we communicate them to our sons and (heaven help me!) our grandsons, they will be weaker versions.
These are great virtues. But one good thing about being a modern dad is the ability to sit down with our kids and just share with them in ways that older guys were just far too reserved to do. Let’s not squander either the great values that marked the greatest generation nor the freedom that we have in this generation.
It’s so true. My Dad was all that and much more. The love he showed my mother (and she to him) was an inspiration right to the end (see http://trishymouse.net/memorial.html and http://trishymouse.net/family/mom.html )
I miss him so much now that he has passed…
This is a quaint and highly romanticized view of these times, I’m afraid. How soon we forget that this was also the same generation that forced Japanese Americans into internment camps during WWII, lynched blacks in the south, denied equality to women, gays, etc.? Come on -seriously.
B-24 Gunner, 10 Kids, Councilman, Founder of a half dozen Little League Organizations, Parents Clubs, Cub and Boy Scout Troops, sole provider, and a genuinely caring honest man leaving such a fantastic example.
I miss him every day, and I don’t think I’ll ever be one one-hundredth the man he was.
http://ritter.vg/misc/private/grandpa.jpg
Good read.
The marriage one is a bit of a hoax though. Back then there were lots of arranged marriages (yes, even in the US) partially because of tradition, but largely economic. This died off largely in the 50’s in the US, though being “introduced” (with the intention that you would _seriously_ consider getting married after a “date” or two) was still quite common.
No divorce wasn’t really much of an option. You either couldn’t afford it or didn’t want the financial stress of being single (read the depression part again if your not sure why that mentality would be in their minds) or it just wasn’t acceptable (your going to tell your parents they picked out the wrong person for you?).
Heck my grandparents still have brothers/sisters who really aren’t fond of their spouse, and practically live separate lives… but they are still married and live in the same house. Because anything else would be just outright wrong.
The other part of that is divorce isn’t talked about as much by the greatest generation. Some of their kids were adults by the time they learned a parent was in a prior marriage and had a kid (meaning they had a half-sibling).
This is a great post. This past Wednesday I met my wife’s grandfather and 100+ other WWII veterans at the WWII memorial in DC. Words can not explain this experience. The most memorable quote from one vet to another- “can you believe they’ve done all this for us. US. We were just doing what we had to.”
While I agree on the work hard and be humble, on the being inventive and plan wisely, this is a bit romanticized view on a generation that mustard gassed each other in the trenches – its true you had to obey orders, but a real man would have understood that what he is doing was wrong. Keep in mind that generation was still racist, still treated women as unequal and stood by as their children stumbled blindly into another Great War. Let’s try not to idolize the past, and see it as it truly was and learn from their mistakes. There is no greatest generation, cause all generations ultimately still repeated the same mistakes as their fathers.
They just don’t make ‘em like that any more.
Here’s to trying.
@Sim- If you read the article- the Greatest Generation was BORN in 1914. It was their parents generation (I don’t know if they have a label) that started WW1 (which is what I presume you meant by the mustard gas in trenches reference; trench warfare did not exist in WW2).
They are the children who stumbled into WW2, so blame their parents for this state of affairs, not them!
And so what if they were racist or anti womens’ rights? The whole world was like that back then, not just the US. Nobody’s perfect- this article only highlights the positive traits that we would do well to emulate.
I agree wholeheartedly with Sim. If you’re going to persist in looking back to the past for inspiration, take off the rose-colored glasses and try to see the whole picture. When you do, you’ll realize this generation we live in is not as bad as you make it out to be. We are stumbling through time, just as the “Greatest Generation” before us. The main difference is that we now have more options. The “freedom” they fought for (and that we continue to fight for) allows for many different lifestyles, some of which you may agree with, some of which you may not. That being said, I enjoy the website and do agree that these timeless virtues should be discussed and encouraged. Keep up the good work.
Great article. I would venture to guess that articles about the virtues of hard work, loyalty and common sense are “preaching to the choir” here. Except to people like Sim who cannot comprehend the gist of the article and can only find things to cry about. God I hate people like him.
As usual, I agree with much of what is in this article. But also, be sure to separate, in some cases, nostalgia from facts – maybe men didn’t exercise and ate whatever they wanted as long as it wasn’t processed, but fact is, despite the very real obesity trend today, men and women today are living longer and more healthily because of new knowledge and habits about diet and exercise. And overall we have less time to work around the house and garden – living where the jobs are requires working the hours necesary to get the pay to support one’s family, one of the honorable ideals in the article (again, with which I agree). I love the site and articles, but always evaluate any claim objectively.
I also agree with Sim’s comments on racism and treatment of women.
Eric, take it easy on Sim. He or she was politely expressing a view and not attacking anyone. Your posting I believe goes against the gentlemanly ideals espoused on this site – of course you may disagree, but to do so respectfully is the truly manly way to do it. Let me ask that we all keep the discussion respectful. Many advances in this country have been made by honest and fair debate, honorable disgreement, and ultimate resolution.
While it may have been wrong to single out Sim I still take offense to the notion that you cannot find virtue in the ideals of the past without also having to bring up the sins of the past.
To all the “let’s be real” folks-
Yeah, the men from the Greatest Generation had their problems. But the point of this article wasn’t to air out their dirty laundry. It was to honor some values that they embodied and that we should try to emulate today.
I’ve read Howard Zinn and all those historians who have brought to light all the crappy stuff Americans did. It’s horrible and I’m glad we’ve progressed. Unfortunately, I think it has become trendy and hip today to focus on the negative aspects of history and ignore the positives our forebeaers did. Let’s not forget that these people laid the foundation for all the progress we’ve seen in America.
Yeah, racism was a big problem, but guess what? Some of the greatest civil rights leaders and activists came from this same generation. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks come to mind.
Same goes for women. Betty Friedan? Greatest Generation member.
Bottom line: every generation has their problems and I hope we learn from them. But to completely discredit the good this generation did because of their mistakes is intellectually dishonest and disrespectful.
The picture of the Normandy invasion brings tears to my eyes and inspires me to be a better man. I think I’ll print it and keep it in plain sight so the next time I complain about an aching knee or a long day, I can shut my mouth and try to remember what real sacrifice is!
Brokaw’s book is a great read and I recommend it to anyone that feels like their life is just too hard.
Thanks Brett and Kate for this inspiring article!
I agree with the gist of the article, concerning the core values that were observed back then. No, the world was never a perfect place then, nor is it today…there was plenty of injustice to go around, all over the world. My grandfather still observes these values, at 91 years young.
And I beg to differ on the opinions of James Considine and Sim, as to this generation being romanticized wrongly…we may have had Japanese Interment camps, but we didn’t have and an Auschwitz or a Dachau, which we could as easily had (except for the prevailing attitudes and morals that were learned by the Greatest Generation in their youth); they did what they thought was right for the time and for the security of the country, whilst living amid the uncertain fog of war. Women may not have had equal rights, but they had equal power and made equal contributions; don’t forget that 90 percent of the folks stayed home and contributed to the war effort via the homefront, not by combat arms (not to mention the fact that women back then were treated with more respect by MOST men, than what they are today…but, that’s another argument altogether)…just as the majority of southern Americans never lynched a man, or even owned a noose.
It’s an all-to-easy trap to fall into, that of labeling a whole generation as ‘bad’, based on the horrific actions and idealogy of a select few…one has to see the “bigger picture” of society here, when dealing with absolutes.
I liked the story Mike Huckabee told at the Republican National Convention about the teacher that took away their students desks and told them they had to earn them back. After they tried and couldn’t come up with a way to do it, she had some veterans come in and carry the desks back in. And she told the class, something to the effect of “You can’t earn the desks-they’ve already been earned for you.”
I have such a debt of gratitude to the men (and women) of the Greatest Generation. Yes they were slow to pick up on things like equality, but all the progress and equality we enjoy today is built on the foundation they gave us. I wonder how equal rights would have gone if we had been living under fascist rule!
I’m not sure how providing some counter balance to the romanticized view of this generation is intellectually dishonest or painting an entire generation as “bad”.
In fact, the tone of this post has a tone of superiority of these folks and their values, and that today’s generation is somehow inferior.
It also suggests that these values are no longer alive and well in today’s younger people. That’s also just not true.
@James-
I do think this generation was superior and I make no bones about it. But I also made it clear that there have been men in every generation who have been as good, and that includes this one.
James…I understand the validity of your comments, it’s just that the idea of this article is to focus on the positives of manliness of that particular Generation…you know, looking for the ‘good’, amidst all the ‘bad’; otherwise, is could have been called “7 Lessons in Inhumanity, Injustice and The Moralistic Fallacy of the Greatest Generation.”
@Brett – that’s fine – and some of us disagree about said superiority.
I think there’s no question that this Generation was the Greatest and definitely better than this one. The day after Pearl Harbor, men were lined up around the block to get into recruiting centers to revenge that great wrong committed against us. After 9/11 men were laying on the couch watching CNN and eating bon bons.
I do like the virtues that have been outlined but I think the biggest problem with focus on these positive values is that they are inherently a double-edged sword.
#1 Take Personal Responsibility for Your Life – I like this concept, I really do, and there would be more benefits to this than not if everyone adhered.
DES: If you were in a position of power then, you were even less accountable for your actions. Responsibility rest much more heavily on the have-nots.
#2 Be Frugal – wasn’t a virtue as much as it was a necessity. This was caused due to a significant lack of resources during the WWII era. If this was passed down, we would be limiting transactions, limiting transactions = devaluation of currency. Spending is what has gotten us where we are today. Except for in the WWII era, the gov’t was the one doing all the spending for us.
#3 Be humble – I just agree with this.
#4 Love loyally – You get the least wiggle room with this argument, unless you can prove statistically that people cheated less, abused less, and coped with less mental health issues, than this is for naught.
#5 Work hard – Agreement again
#6 Embrace challenge – the biggest challenges need a con consensus of people to agree and work together, sadly there just isn’t as much cooperation in general anymore. We certainly have become more polarized, in turn, crippling efforts to overcome really large challenges. In the same token, we are definitely looking to focus more on living life, which has its own benefits, than overcoming enormous obstacles.
#7 Don’t make life so damn complicated – def a matter of your perspective. Everyone looks back on past generations and thinks the same thing.
Really great article. I fully support, agree with, and defend everything in this article.
To those who want to look at the negatives of “The Greatest Generation” (Robert, Sim, et al.), I don’t think anyone would sit here and say that generation did it perfectly. No generation has and no generation will.
Do I support or encourage racism? No! Of course I don’t. However (and I make this statement as a Proud Southerner), much of this country was already actively and passionately standing up for equal rights. Not only for African Americans, but for women as well. The worst accounts of racism were taking place in the South, where it had still been significantly less than 100 years since slavery was abolished. Again, I am not defending racism or the hate and ignorance of many generations, but change of action and thinking take time. I would even say that this this “Greatest Generation” was the starting strength of working towards national equality for all people, regardless of race and/or gender. And they were definitely the generation that got their children involved in making positive changes.
Does this mean that EVERY MAN was a man of noble character during this particular generation…HELL NO! Like I said earlier, there is never going to be a time and place (on this earth) where that is the case. However, I believe the point of this article (as is the point of most articles on this site) is that subsequent generations since the “Greatest Generation” have continually seen the scales starting to tip in the direction of men not really being “men.”
I know there are men and women who will argue and fight to the death to talk about “the new man” and metro-sexuality” and all that, but I don’t agree and I don’t support it. The “Greatest Generation” was not the only generation with great men. And the great men of the “Greatest Generation”, at least in this article, are referred to as American men. Well, there have been cultures of great men throughout history that I believe are also deserving of the title “The Greatest Generation.”
The truth is time changes everything. I honestly wish we didn’t have advanced technology or TVs, or at least no cable with 500+ channels. I often find myself wishing my days were reflective of the stories my Granddad (A GREAT MAN!!!) used to tell me of his youth, young adulthood and manhood. I try to live as simply as possible, but I often get excited about superficial and unimportant things, which honestly don’t add to my life, and much of it is just more crap and clutter. I bet you I’d have an extra $100,000 in savings if I could return all the stuff I bought that I didn’t need or wasted away.
Unfortunately we are becoming an ultra liberal, technology focused world. It makes me sad. Where are the days when we find a full days enjoyment from nature. Now it can require an hours drive or more just to get out to nature. Most people, young and old, can’t wake up run out their front doors and be in nature anymore. They are in suburbs, surrounded by strip malls, surrounded by whatever metropolitan they live outside of.
But I’ve gotten off the main topic of manliness. I’ve known 70 year old men (and probably some older than that) that have straight up put cocky, spray tan, loud mouth, muscle headed, BOYS (18-40 years old) in their place. I don’t care what cheap form of confidence BOYS are trying to pass as real manliness today, there is a serious epidemic of fakeness and falseness in our WORLD today. That is why the divorce rate is what it is, because men and women don’t know true and genuine manliness, or womanliness anymore. The roles are confused, if not straight up forgotten. It is really awkward when my wife and I are out with another couple and we see the opposite sex acting the roles should be acted the other. There is a difference between equality and dysfunction, and the gender-lines have been seriously blurred, and there seems to be a movement to erase them completely.
I hope sites and articles like this will motivate real men (and women) to start their own counter-revolution to all those who have been moving against people like us. I am a proponent on progress (like equal rights), but I don’t support change just for change sake…that is not progress.
I appreciate the specific virtues of the “Greatest Generation” highlighted in this article. Generally speaking, theirs were courage and honor, commitment and self-restraint. I only wish they recognized the cultural and technological changes in the mid-20th century that combined with their parenting to form the, generally speaking, reprehensible, cynical, spoiled and stupid Baby Boomer generation.
To me, the failure to transmit what virtues and values they had to the next generation is the reason I cannot abide the characterization of Mr. Brokaw except in quotes. We’ll reap the consequences of the Baby Boomers’ foolish self-indulgence with interest for decades to come.
Damn. Just….. damn.
This is why I love this site. My grandfather unfortunately did not get to fight for the US. He was to busy hiding in the woods of Poland fighting for his life and watching his family lose theirs. I owe my very existence to the men you speak of. My grandfather emulated a lot of what you wrote and it has been passed down.
Despite loosing everything he had, watching his father, first wife, and brother get killed before him in three separate incidents, despite being able to only provide for my mother with the wages of a fur cutter, he never complained, he never blamed others for his misfortunes, and he never expected anyone to provide for him.
I live in a different time and do well enough for myself, but I have had to push through some muck and took the same gritty approach and it is because of my grandfather’s example.
Awesome post Brett. I greatly admire my grandparents and their incredible strength of character (it shouldn’t be incredible, but it is). My grandpa started his life’s work when he was 23. Over 50 years later, at age 73, he is still going strong, still persevering in his Christian ministry. My grandma too has been faithful and consistent for the last 50 years, always looking for ways to help others and many times forgetting entirely about herself.
I see the pathetic whimpiness of many in my generation, and I see some of the same tendencies in myself. With God’s help, though, I want to be a different kind of man. I wan’t to be someone who exemplifies consistency, commitment, hard work, and all the virtues a true man possess. Thanks again.
Great article – thanks for posting. In regards to my own grandfather, a veteran of the World War, I have but one word – Class.
He had class in his dress, his manner, his life.
If I had one wish, it would be to be half of the man he was.
Although I agree with these core values being uplifted, the “Greatest Generation” hype has always been a bit much for me.
Robert stated, “but we didn’t have and an Auschwitz or a Dachau,” mirroring the myth that we were always the good guys in WWII. Nonsense! German, and especially Japanese prisoners we often shot point-blank when they tried to surrender.
Geneva Convention? After the war’s end, thousands of German prisoners were illegally administratively reclassified by us so that they could be utilized for forced labor or to illegally clear minefields. Thousands of German prisoners were deliberately starved-off in open field “camps†with no sanitation and no shelter. My own father guarded one of those camps, so don’t tell me it ain’t so. Many German prisoners were also blithely given over to our Soviet allies, us knowing that the Reds were just gonna march them down the road a mile or two and shoot them.
It is the sappy-happy myth that our side was all goodness-and-light in WWII that is clouding our current debate over the “torture” of terrorists.
The “Greatest Generation” indeed did some remarkable things. But being squeaky-clean in our treatment of our enemies was not one of them.
Brucifer wrote:
Robert stated, “but we didn’t have and an Auschwitz or a Dachau,†mirroring the myth that we were always the good guys in WWII. Nonsense! German, and especially Japanese prisoners we often shot point-blank when they tried to surrender.
Brucifer,
Isolated instances in an insane war, by scared and/or emotionally-incensed individuals, and NOT approved policy; remember, Sherman said, “War is hell”. We didn’t shoot or burn them by the millions, now did we? All in all, we WERE the good guys…read your history, man!
While your summary is principally accurate and the juxtaposition with baby boomers and their children accurate, there are two caveats:
1) The average age of the WWII GI was notably higher than it is today—26 (22 for marines). There were much younger kids for sure, but a lot of these men were young professionals, not fresh out of high school.
2) There is one thing these guys failed at miserably, unfortunately, that nobody mentions: raising a family. They came home, had a lot of swell kids, and let them grow up and disown everything their parents had fought for. Those guys didn’t fight and die could be turned over to the mob of flag-burning, pot-smoking free-love hippies that their children grew up to be with the help of the Warren Court. You’ve got to lay some blame on the Ward Cleavers of the world for what the Beaver did in college and afterward—a kid who had been taught correctly wouldn’t have burnt his draft card in the 1960s and today be the kind of limp-wristed loser who makes things like this blog even necessary. For all that generation did, they sure messed that up but good; not sure how they did it, but they managed.
@Kevin-
Thanks for sharing that about your grandfather. He sounds like an incredible man. While some of this article is focused on Americans, I really had in mind all the men from this generation. The men who survived the Holocaust in Poland, the men who stood up to Hitler’s regime in Germany, the men who battled it out in the skies over Britain. All around the world men rose to meet the challenges before them.
@Titus and Albert-
Your point about their failure to raise good kids is well-taken. I hadn’t thought much about that but it’s certainly true. The only thing I’d say in their defense is that after so much deprivation and suffering I imagine it would have been tempting to be indulgent with your children, and that Boomer’s failures came not just from bad parenting but from a confluence of social and economic factors out of any parent’s control. But again, you make a solid point.
In general, I agree that many, perhaps even most, of the men of the Greatest Generation were good, decent, hard-working men as you described.
However. (clears throat) This was also the generation that produced people who worked (and, in some cases, are still working) to destroy our country. I’ll highlight some of the worst.
LBJ (born 1908, but close enough) gave us his socialist “Great” Society, which created generations of unwed mothers dependent on welfare, and their children who went on to lives of crime.
Ted Kennedy (born 1932, but close enough) has continuously betrayed the country in his leftism and undying championing of illegal aliens and others who are inherently unable and/or unwilling to assimilate to our culture.
Add to this Hall of Shame all the politicians who supported their policies, and remember that as bad as the Worst Generation (aka the Me Generation or the Baby Boomers) has been, none of them were able to vote for the nation-destroying policies that these two (and others of their ilk) imposed on us.
Sorry. After my experience with the anti-male, anti-father family court system, I won’t be teaching my sons any of this BS. Why should I teach them to serve this nation and American Women when the only thing those two entities do is spit in the face and disrespect men?
The old rules of male slavery no longer apply.
Government, Women, & Society DON’T CARE ABOUT MEN. You’re on your own.
That’s what I’ll be teaching my boys.
They weren’t better people. They are simply products of their circumstances. Under similar circumstances we would rise to the occasion. In many ways, we have life much more difficult than these men.
And in regards to burning draft cards, that may very well have been the right thing to do. Vietnam was a waste.
It’s sad that people need a war in order to show their greatness. How about becoming the greatest generation through peace. Yeah, I’m dreaming.
As a member of Generation Y(I think that’s my generation although I could be off…I was born in ‘81 so is that Generation-something-else?) I definitely agree that the virtues of our grandfathers and fathers are worth preserving. But I would add that it’s not possible to compare generations and say one is better than the other, except in rare circumstances.
Each generation contributes its own positives and negatives to the collective history of the world and our nation. It’s absolutely fair to point out the bad with the good because it all goes into creating the world as we know it today. Our grandfathers and grandmothers put the country on their back and got it out of the Depression, won World War II and worked for a world where their grandchildren would hopefully never have to make the same sacrifices they did. Nobody is perfect and comparing the best of one generation to the imperfect of another is incorrect.
That being said, certain characteristics of past generations should be preserved, and I think that was the point of the article/post. I only wish we could get away fro comparing generations that have little in common with respect to the world they inhabit or inhabited. Our grandfathers went to war and many made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us; remembering that is paramount. But they lived in a very different world than their grandfathers, many of who fought in the Civil War or arrived afterward from other parts of the world as brand new Americans, and helped rebuild the country. And they both lived in a very different world than we do today. I’m grateful for the work, grit and sacrifice made by all past generations that have come before me because they helped make my life better in so many ways. Would I be willing to sign up to go fight a war on par with World War II, Vietnam, the Civil War, both Gulf Wars, Afghanistan or the Revolutionary War (ignoring the presence of a draft and conscription during some of those wars)? I’d like to think so, but that’s not a choice that I have had to make in my own life in the same way my ancestors did because of what they did for me and for all of us. Some of us still make that choice and my gratefulness is no less great for men and women my age who volunteer to defend us when nobody is saying they have to.
I don’t know if my entire generation will have to make that sort of choice in our lifetimes, and I disagree that that means we won’t be as great as past generations. The young generations of today are just as flawed as others, but we also have the potential to do great things while preserving the qualities of manliness passed down to us by our fathers and grandfathers. In addition to Generation X and Y members who serve with honor in our armed forces, we have the chance to cure cancer, destroy AIDS, bring food and health care to millions here and abroad, bring peace to parts of the world that desperately need it, see men walk on the surface of another planet, preserve and repair our environment, etc etc etc. I have high hopes for my generation and if we can preserve those virtues common in the best men of every generation, I think we’ll be on the road to making them proud.
Thank you Generation Y for speaking up for us post baby-boomers. I part of generation X, and I feel very ill prepared for life. My grandfather never went to war, but worked his fathers farm in the midwest through the great depression and he would often tell me stories of days when he wasn’t sure if the family was going to make it, but he never quit. He passed the never quit mentality on to my dad who ended up being a professional worker to the extent that he never made time to teach me much of anything that can help me in life now. Of course I always had what I needed except a quick kick in the pants. It’s taken me to the age of 35 to become what my grandfather already was at 15 but I say better late than never.
Generation Y, I believe with all the problems our forefathers have failed to solve and the ones that they created, if we don’t step up to the plate and become the next “greatest generation”, we may become the “last generation”.
We women have to be manly now, too, and all these guidelines apply to us as well. As a woman abandoned by her husband, I’ve had to do all these things and raise children by myself, which required thrift, fortitude, a lack of self-pity, etc. And I’ve had to pass these values to my children.
In reply to the person why mentioned that most of the ‘Great Men’ mentioned in this article are American, well, of course? The author of the article is American, it is only natural. I am Australian of British descent, and if I wrote a similar article it would have more Australian and British examples, because that is what I know more about.
I find it very sickening and upsetting that what was considered the greatest generation (40s) was able to produce the worst generation (50s/60s) of children.
All of that bad assery that our boys let Japan and Germany have a taste of should have been given to my parents generation. Obviously it wasn’t.
OMG! How dare you imply that our generation isn’t the greatest on ever? We’re just as good as them, even if we by and large haven’t done most of the worthwhile things they have! We’re great just the way we are, why should we have to do anything admirable to be considered great? That’s sexist!
(jk, someone seriously criticized an article of mine in this general fashion recently though. It was rather shocking.)
Great article. We can learn a lot from that generation.
I would suggest you look to yourself, and not your generation.
No generation is perfect and one can easily find fault, but this generation did more good and was a beacon for greatness and sacrifice for the betterment of future generations. My grandparents and parents unfortunately experienced the brutality of the Japanese in the Philippines and it was only through the sacrifice and courage of this generation that saved countless lives of my countrymen.
Thank you Brett! I love your posts.