A story about the oldest remaining Pearl Harbor survivor. I though this was pretty telling:
About 2,000 survivors attended the 50th anniversary event in 1991. A few dozen have showed in recent decades. In 2024, only two made it. That is out of an estimated 87,000 troops stationed on Oahu that day. None made the pilgrimage to Hawaii last year.
Over at The American Catholic, there was a similar reflection on Memorial Day when thinking on that Greatest Generation and the passage of time. Other observation about Mr. Johnson that probably sums up much of that generation's tendencies:
“I wish more people were like him today. He just gets on and doesn’t complain about anything,” said Desmond Keogh, the chairman of the parade who has accompanied Johnson. “It’s what this country was all about. They were just a different generation. They did what was best for their country.”
Each generation probably wants to be a credit to those who came before, and I'm sure the development of Memorial Day was merely a part of that process. Whether that is what our current generation wants or cares about, I don't know.
Nonetheless, Memorial Day is a day to ponder such thing. As a reminder, here is one way my family has done so over the years, from an old, old post. There were many other things we did, but this came to my mind this week.
For all their stoicism, it's a shame that the "Greatest Generation" didn't actually raise their children better. To be fair, however, they were raised in scarcity and sacrifice and their children were raised in abundance and indulgence. I can hardly think I'd do any better actually. My kids are way more bougie in their sensibilities than is probably good for them even though I'd hardly call them spoiled. As an example, when my oldest kids were young, whatever was on PBS kids was IT. Now through the PBS Kids app, you can pick between several episodes of whatever show you want to watch at any given time.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it has always bothered me that we sent the best of our young men over to the Middle East wars. It did untold damage to many of them personally, physically, psychologically, and ultimately even philosophically. What did they even sacrifice for? The WWII vets never had that conundrum.