Greatness is Where You Find It

I have a tendency to hammer my own generation as being selfish and shallow, but I think I've been corrected by Robert Alt's article today on NRO.

There is a temptation to say that Pat Tillman demonstrated a courage and ethic belonging peculiarly to a previous generation — perhaps Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" — one in which athletes and movie stars served. But that would be a mistake. This generation should not be underestimated. The young men of today's military have done something which "the Greatest Generation" did not have to do: They volunteered to serve after the Brokaws of the world lost faith in the American military. These soldiers have fought valiantly in Afghanistan after the press all but forgot them, and in Iraq after the press, yielding to unfounded accusations, forgot who they were. They have seen recent military victories cast as defeats. They answered the call to higher duty, only to have the elites question it as lower-class service. And despite politicians using the shameful rhetoric of "quagmire," the number of volunteer soldiers is increasing.

There has been in the past, and there is now, greatness in Americans. There is no need, as Alt notes, for arguing about the greatest generation; America will always have heroes to answer the call.

Read the story.

Posted by zombyboy at April 26, 2004 11:35 AM | TrackBack