Dear Mr. Dionne,
In your latest piece, “The new Greatest Generation,” you write: “… And here’s the most remarkable thing: Not one of these men and women complained about what we asked of them… we need to recognize the contribution that this new generation of veterans can make to our nation… we don’t need to be nostalgic about the Greatest Generation. It’s right here among us.”
We are a highly militaristic nation, often given to outright worship of the military. Liberals frequently go out of their way to demonstrate they have no problem rallying around the flag and “supporting the troops.” It’s in our culture.
What I take issue with in pieces like this is that Americans should be complaining about what is asked of the military. Low-level soldiers should be too. It was shocking – and necessary – when Stanley McChrystal blasted the incoherence of the war in Afghanistan. But somebody had to do it. Your new “greatest generation” isn’t doing it for the most part.
I am of the same generation you are. In my view, the “greatest generation” is still the citizen-soldiers of WWII who fought a war that was less morally ambiguous than all the many wars that followed it. The soldiers you praise today as “the greatest generation” are largely victims of a rotten economy who have found a new profession in the military. Surely, as a professor, you have noticed the demographic tilts that have started to manifest themselves in the makeup of the military. They are no longer the sons and daughters of every American family, and they no longer represent all regions of the nation equally. In a very disquieting sense, the military has become a new class of centurion-mercenaries.
I have no doubts that many of the men and women you encounter have a part to play and skills to offer the country. But so do all the rest of us. Today is Thanksgiving, not Veteran’s Day, not Memorial Day, not Independence Day – not one of the many days we already pray at the shrine of militarism.
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