Chuck Hughes, Salisbury, N.C.
♦ The greatest generation has slowly passed into history and into the hands of the God they held in such esteem and awe. At age 73, I like many others, am the progeny of the heroes who saved the world from fascism and the Nazis. Although collectively we did a bit but nothing that was world or event changing except perhaps making a big dent in communism. Although President Reagan brought the Soviet Union to its knees, the morphing of the Democratic Party into liberalism and liberalism into progressivism that seems to be courting socialism has made this great president’s contribution somewhat mute.
Oh, yea, my generation had its wars as well. Let’s see, there was the Korean War that saved South Korea from domination by the North. Despite the lives and wealth spend on this endeavor, however, North Korea remains one of the most unstable, nuclear armed (yea, you bet they have nukes) nations on the Earth, rivaled only by Iran.
Then there was the Vietnam War, the lost war whose defeat can be attributed in large part to Jane Fonda. It is a fact that the North Vietnam government was ready to capitulate to the 24/7 carpet bombing and surrender; that was until Ms. Fonda visited Ho Chi Minh and gave him the comfort of knowing there was a swell of negativism in the USA against the war. Believing the U.S. would eventually capitulate to the drug using, promiscuous “hippy” generation at home, the North held on long enough to win. And win they did at the cost of the lives of thousands of American men and women as well as hundreds of thousands South Vietnamese who supported the U.S. when the North invaded the South.
I hesitate to even mention the Iraq war which, after being won is being given back to Islamic radicals as we speak and The Afghanistan war that we have no will to win. Again, death and disfigurement along with the last remnants of our wealth frame these debacles.
These are the failures of my generation. However, our great nation survived, mainly because we still had many of the values passed down to us by the Greatest Generation. However, our biggest failure as a generation is just beginning to emerge from the womb – the generation of irresponsibility. We see it in the booming “Me Generation” that has been quickly nourished by a “we can provide everything” government.
Sadly, the “Me Generation” and generations to follow will never know the wealth and productivity we grew up in. They will know only the poverty of government hand-outs. They may never know or
appreciate the desire to work for a living. They will never experience being able to go to sleep at nightwithout locking your doors. They will never know the security of living in a neighbor that looked out for your house when you were away instead of a neighborhood waiting for you to leave in order to rob your house. They will never know the value of a piece of penny candy actually costing a penny. They will never know a time when there wasn’t that much difference between a Republican and a Democrat since both held the best interest of the country in their hands as an elective mandate – not a path to power and wealth. They will never experience turning on the black & white TV and NOT having every program mentioning the President’s newest failure. About the only time I heard from a sitting president in my youth was during the State of the Union address.
