"The Greatest Generation"

A tribute to some of our country's veterans- here are a few words from Tom Brokaw:

“These men and women came of age in the Great Depression, when economic despair hovered over the land like a plague. They had watched their parents lose their businesses, their farms, their jobs, their hopes. They had learned to accept a future that played out one day at a time. Then, just as there was a glimmer of economic recovery, war exploded across Europe and Asia. … This generation was summoned to the parade ground and told to train for war. They left their ranches … , their jobs on the main street … , they gave up their place on the assembly lines … and in the ranks of Wall Street, they quit school or went from cap and gown directly into uniform. …
“They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting, often hand to hand, in the most primitive conditions possible. … They were in the air every day, in skies filled with terror, and they went to sea on hostile waters far removed from the shores of their homeland. …
“When the war was over, the men and women who had been involved … joined in joyous and short-lived celebrations, then immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted. They were mature beyond their years, tempered by what they had been through, disciplined by their … training and sacrifices. They married in record numbers and gave birth to another … generation. … They stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.”

Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (1998), xix–xx.