I am one of the few remaining of what Tom Brokaw called the ‘Greatest Generation.’ We who remain were Great Depression kids. We know what real hardship is. We know what real poverty is. We did not burn buildings down nor loot stores. We went to safe schools. Few got to go through college. Then we went to war. We loved America, passionately, and still do. We spilled oceans of our blood defeating the Nazis and Japan. Some of us had to go back to war, to Korea, to halt the spread of communism. Then we returned to build the mightiest, most affluent nation the world has ever seen. We desegregated schools. We passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Then we turned old, and turned the country over to the next generation. Oy vey!
I can remember when women never swore. Never! I can remember when men never swore in the presence of women. I remember when you could go to movies and not be inundated with obscenities, graphic violence, pornography, and bathroom scenes. Ladies dressed up and wore gloves before going downtown to shop. There were gentlemen in those days, too. Girls were smart enough to demand marriage before giving their bodies away, then having to face raising their children alone, dooming themselves to a lifetime of poverty. Drug addiction was a rarity. A handshake was more binding than any written contract. Police were respected. In short, there were high standards, and we respected them.
Was my generation perfect? Hardly. But in order to make whatever improvements remained, was it necessary to destroy this highly civilized ethos, replacing it with the sloth, violence, crudity, and lawlessness that mars America today?
In a very few years the last of the Greatest Generation will be gone. We made one bad mistake. Vowing that our children would never have to go through what we did, we over-pampered them. We left them as our inheritance the finest nation the world has ever seen. One can only weep at what has become of it.
Lee Levin
Overland Park, Kansas
