The Greatest Generation

In his recent book, The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw declares the GI Generation "The Greatest." So what's that mean? That it's all downhill from there? We don't buy it. Jesus' question, "To what will I compare this generation?" needs to be answered by each generation for itself.

"To what shall I compare this generation?" asks Jesus.

"What's up with kids today?" we ask ourselves.

It's always been a national pastime -- ragging on the younger generation and complaining about their lack of this, that or something or other.

NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, however, comes flat-out and tells us who gets the nod as "The Greatest Generation." In a book by the same title (New York: Random House, 1998), he argues that it is the GI Generation that stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II, that went to work in American factories, that bought bonds to support the war effort -- that this is the greatest generation.

These are the ones, women and men, the living and the dead, who willingly gave their lives, who gave their limbs, who gave their sweet nightly dreams of childhood over to the enduring nightmare of real war -- The Big One -- the war that honestly and truly saved the world from fascism, the war that protected the home of the brave, the land of the free so...