https://youtu.be/pQkpUX5jI9g

In the video above, NRA “New Commentator” Dom Raso asks “Do We Deserve the WWII Generation’s Sacrifice?” It’s the flag-waving pro-freedom rant you’d expect from Mr. Raso, a former Navy SEAL. And then some. And yet, in these days of the Internet, where anyone and everyone can question received wisdom, YouTube commentators have hit Mr. Raso’s “greatest generation” thesis with both barrels. “Bullshit,” Ray Haws opines. “It was the WW2 generation that gave us . . .

socialism, gun control, the welfare state, the police state, the war on drugs, and the military industrial complex. Don’t get me wrong they kicked the shit out of some very bad countries but politically they where one of the greatest destroyers of liberty and prosperity in this country. Whether or not they where decieved or intentional about it, it did in fact happen on their watch.

Yes, well, there is that. In this reality check, Mr. Haws is not alone. Check out Tyco Caine’s take:

Wait, WTF? The socialist slide this country took started with that generation. Just like those of us who serve now, those who served then were normal human beings with all of the foibles and limitations that being human entails. When you study history, you should make an effort not to romanticize it Dom. My grandfather was at Okinawa (and other battles in the Pacific) and he was a racist, sexist, violent, son of a bitch of a man who did not care about anyone’s freedom but his own. Don’t get me wrong, we all loved the bastard until the day he died (and still do), but you are projecting YOUR vision of what those men fought for on to a large disparate group of people who had complex reasons behind why they did the things they did. How do you like it when people say that you “fought for oil” or project their bullshit on your service and motivations?

Your thoughts?

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133 COMMENTS

  1. Wow. One thing though. The socialist slide in this country actually started during an influx of German immigrants that were influenced by the Marxist movement back in the old country. That was in the 1850s.

    • Actually, I think a certain amount of Socialism in this country was inevitable due to the Depression, lack of financial support for the elderly, lack of good, organized retirements systems and other factors. Combine that with the influence of Communism and you have a combination that has little to do with who was alive or in power at that time. And truthfully, some limited Socialist ideas such as unemployment benefits, Social Security and “Limited” Welfare serve to balance out some of the harsher features of Capitalism. The danger is taking these ideas too far and using them to reduce our freedoms and the best part of Capitalism that has made our country the strongest and, arguably, the richest in the world. Without Capitalism we would not have the lifestyle that we have in this country or the money for all of these Socialist inspired programs. Neither Pure Socialism or Pure Capitalism are good systems. But the right mix can and have been great for the USA. The challenge is to keep that balance and our liberties.

      • Capitalism has no “rough edges.” The rough edges are just a part of life, and will always exist, with or without capitalism. If anything, capitalism allows people to have the prosperity to soften the edges of life. Nor has capitalism ever stopped people from taking care of each other. You seem to be confusing capitalism with social Darwinism.

      • I’ve been pointing out the failings of the “Greatest Generation” for years. Glad to see I’m not alone. While they certainly didn’t invent the welfare state, enough of them voted for it (along with those of other generations) to cement it in place.

        • As the framers of our nation pointed out in speeches , letters , decrees , articles and any other form of communication at their disposal with thousands of words . Capitalism is only a truly functional system as long as the driving force behind it , the citizens , are morally honest and living according to the values that the founders and the majority of the citizenry in the 1600 – 1700’s held fast , primarily , Christian values . We are our brothers keepers is a actual tenant of the capitalism doctrine in many of the theories espoused about the concept of a free people having a free commerce . The more self centered and materialistic we become culturally the more we accept the role of the government as the caregiver of our brothers and sisters and relinquish our responsibility in the capitalistic circle . This leads to more government control and less freedom to express a true capitol commerce by a free citizenry , more nationalism , socialism and eventually , left unchecked , imperialism or a form of it .
          I know people don’t like to hear about Christianity on TTAG but there really isn’t a greater method of self regulation where ‘ we are our brothers keepers ‘ , known to exist , and if we lose ‘ this foundation ‘ of a working capitalism model , we will lose capitalism , which is by and far , the greatest system ever created to give all people the opportunity to enter into a new and more influential class from the one below it , climbing the ladder as it is often referred , by their own merit and not through blood line and or governed classification .

          • Mark, Well said. People don’t want religion anymore because it goes against their belief that there is nothing in the world greater than them.

            Also I have lived and traveled all over the world and there are few places outside of the US that people can truly rise above the station they were born in. Problem is many Americans have become to lazy to to afford themselves the opportunities America provides.

    • The “socialist slide” started when workers have realized that they’re getting the increasingly short end of the stick in the new large-scale urban industrial capitalism arrangement.

      • “New large-scale urban industrial capitalism arrangement”? What the hell kind of gibbering word salad is that? You sound like an adjunct professor from Berkely trying to impress someone.

        • You might want to check the dictionary; it has all the long words.

          In not so few words, it means the kind of capitalism that requires large factories in huge numbers, which are naturally placed in (or else create) dense urban centers.

      • They did not realize it, they believed it.

        It doesn’t need to be true for you to believe it.

        The working class has seen significantly more substantial increases in general standard of living in the past hundred years than any other group. That’s not the short end of the stick.

        • Who’s talking about the last hundred years? The period when socialism was on the rise as a political ideology in US (and, really, everywhere) was mid-to-late 19th century. The latter part of which is also known to this day as the Gilded Age – and for a very good reason. The period that gave us such wondrous things as phossy jaw and four penny coffin.

          • As many as 100,000 americans immigrated in the 1930s to the USSR to live in the workers paradise. The 20’s saw a huge surge in socialism/communism in the US.

        • Greedy capitalism is what I often tell people is always the beginning of the government squeeze . Teddy R. , W. Wilson , Theodore R. , were results of and not cause of . When people begin to lose their moral compass and fall into a state of deviance and decadence and self centered wonderment , they set themselves up for progressive and socialist strongmen to balance the scales , the problem is always the same , it is nearly , if not completely impossible to dismantle the infrastructures and apparatuses created to balance these capitol abuses . Obama Care ( Affordable Care Act ) is just another example of a check and balance to an out of control capitalist system without the foundation of ‘ I am my brothers keeper ‘ by the citizenry . We say , ‘ we are our brothers keepers with our taxes ‘ . NOT EFFECIENT and not sustainable .

    • That is my ancestors history…..and every one fought for America when called and are now staunch God Fearing American Conservatives!

      Next theory?

  2. “The socialist slide this country took started with that generation. Just like those of us who serve now, those who served then were normal human beings with all of the foibles and limitations that being human entails. When you study history, you should make an effort not to romanticize it. ……. you are projecting YOUR vision of what those men fought for on to a large disparate group of people who had complex reasons behind why they did the things they did. How do you like it when people say that you “fought for oil” or project their bullshit on your service and motivations?”

    I don’t disagree with that, the guy has a good point.

  3. A generation that suffered through the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression and the Second World War can be called “The Toughest Generation.” Compare them to the thin-wristed hurtsie-feelie pansies of today and try not to laugh.

    The Greatest Generation? That’s the title of a book.

    • I think you’re on to something there Ralph. Other generations did tough things and went thru tough times too, tho, so maybe it was the “last toughest generation”. And unfortunately, in wanting to spare their progeny some of their own travails, they raised something of a spoiled generation (yeah, including me), and it kinda went downhill from there.

        • I will raise my hand and be counted among those spoiled , although not as much as many and have made great strides as I grew older , overcoming this tradition as did many of my generation . I think our greatest failure was allowing the moral break down of the 60’s and 70’s and the out of control materialism of the 80’s – 90’s to destroy our discipline and our families and begin the absolute destruction of the molecular family of a mother and a father and children as a unit . Fatherless children , broken marriages , children with two sets of parents and etc. was too much for our fragile , moral deprived country to handle , we’ve turned to drugs , sexual deviation and materialistic suicide , the generation of children below the age of 30 are by and large the most morally destitute , materialistically spoiled , this nation has ever produced ( my opinion ) .

            • >> Anyone know a nation/country this far from their moorings that actually did turn things around?

              Yes. Pretty much any country that’s more than a couple centuries old.

              • Are we talking about the non-socialist, non-welfare state nations of England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece? Those sorts of turn-around stories?

              • Sure. If you look at their histories, they all had their share of devastating civil wars and revolutions that significantly reformatted how they function. This has nothing to do with socialism, and everything with social strife and conflict in general, which exist in any non-ideal society, and every now and then it bottles up and explodes.

              • The listed countries are prime examples of how the public demands on government service, and the willingness of politicians to placate the public, combine to destroy the greatness of a nation. The listed countries are all enjoying the fruits of a working class supporting a majority non-working class (perhaps where the people demand 30hr work weeks and full retirement at 50 are countries where the barely working are supporting the totally non-working). I do not think we have a situation where socialist nations experience a renovation in the spirit of the people such that slackers are rewarded for their contribution, and contributors continue t prosper.

  4. The difference between my dad’s generation (he was in WW2 and Korea, I’ve written about him on this site at http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/07/daniel-zimmerman/contest-entry-meet-my-father-master-sgt-john-eliyas/) and today’s generation is work ethic. I have never met a lazier bunch of slacking hipsters in my life, and I think their sense of entitlement is appalling. I have interviewed and hired former military and civilian alike, and find they by and large lack the drive of my father’s generation. Sure he was from a generation that was more misogynist, hard hitting and drinking, but he also grew up in the depression, fought two wars, worked nights in a factory and part time restoring furniture, while sending 3 kids to parochial school. nuff said.

    • I have to disagree, plenty of this generation are still hard workers, I have two jobs and teach CCW classes on my off time. Every generations has it’s lazy people, the beatniks, the hippies, the hipsters, it’s all one big cycle. The difference is the internet, and the 24 hour news cycle.

      • Until LBJ’s Great Socialist Society, natural selection took care of the lazy.

        Today the lazy enjoy a pretty fair standard of living, on the backs of the (soon to be a minority group) hard working types. As the parasites’ share increases, the number of people willing to work to support them decreases, which of course increases the cost to the remaining productive workers and encourages more of them to throw in the towel.

          • She did. Bets are still taken on whether the Second Coming or the Atlas Shrugging will actually happen first.

        • Well said int19h,
          It may not be ‘either or ‘ , Atlas shrugging would or could bring about the second coming , it would surely draw out the takers from their basements and government offices into the streets crying for their fare .

    • That lack of work ethic and entitlement of recent generations is what infuriates me the most lately.
      At my employer (Walmart), the vast majority of us who have been employed for longer than 6 months are my age (36) or older. Whenever the store hires a group of 18-23yr olds (usually about 6-8 every couple months), almost none even make it even close to the 6 month mark. They lack the desire to show up on time, refuse to keep their “smartphones” put away while on the clock, have no sense of urgency when it comes to daily work goals, and constantly make excuses to clock-out early or skip work entirely. Most are driving to work in new cars/trucks that their parents bought them as graduation-presents, are still living with those same parents, and tote around brand-new phones. None of their toys/vehicles are even close to being affordable on entry-level wages, and these kids simply have no concept of budgeting or concerns about paying their way at home. I’ve even heard some who were about to be fired (for tardiness/attendance), admit outright that they didn’t need to work at Walmart because their parents made enough money, or that they could live more comfortably on welfare/foodstamps.

      These young “Americans” pose a far greater long-term threat to our country than any external forces that I can think of.

      Half of my family were ethnic Germans & Polish farmers from Russia, who left when the bolsheviks began collectivization and the purges. The other half were OG Mormons from out West; both families made a point of maintaining & passing on the hard-core, dirt-farming work ethic to their children & grandkids, which those two groups historically needed to simply survive.

      In recent years though, I’ve noticed that my younger cousins/nephews/nieces are now exhibiting the laziness & institutional entitlement mentality which has become so common. The damage has been done, and laying blame at the feet of older generations is kind of pointless now.

      • If you think the types that are employed at Walmart are representative of the whole, boy are you mistaken. Try looking into fields that are more complex than putting cans of soup on a shelf. In the IT field, it’s this “lazy generation” that rolls its eyes so much they’re about to fall out because the “better, older generation” can’t figure out how to perform the most basic functions on about any modern device.

        That’s not to say that any generation is better or worse than each other. It’s just that your limited experience is really just confirming your bias. Older folk have been bitching about younger folk since the beginning of time. It’s as natural as eating and screwing.

        • Grind, Sorry but you are mistaken. I work with the gov’t and the millennials are mostly worthless. An office I occasionally have to go to has lost 300 of them in the last 3 yrs. They wake up and decide I don’t like my job and quit. No work ethic at all.

          This country needs to revert back to the dead cat in a tree approach. That is you never see a cat skeleton in a tree because they come down when they are hungry. These millennials have to many safety nets so there is no negative repercussion for being lazy.

        • I’ve been reading lately that, surprisingly, the current crop of texters/gamers/tweeter/instagramers, who are quite proficient with smart phones and social media, are actually about useless in using standard office productivity software. Corporations are spending millions in bringing recently graduated new employees up to par on basic applications like Microsoft Office – stuff that we’d been led to believe that students had been using since elementary school.

          My wife is enrolled in a course at the local community college and took a class on Office Technology – the required level of understanding of basic office software like Word and Excel was incredibly basic. So, those IT youth who are rolling their eyes because Grandpa doesn’t understand TCP/IP protocols are quite likely in the minority.

        • Grind, my experience is far from being limited to Walmart; it just happens to be the most recent. Prior to working for the Big Blue Monster, I was an active-duty soldier in the Big Green Monster. During those eight years (with the last four as an NCO), I had to deal with a fair amount of outright lazy guys. I was considered an old-man (24) compared to the other recruits by the time I enlisted, but the difference in work-ethic between others my age and those coming in as 18-19yr olds wasn’t nearly as glaring as it is now.

          While far fewer in number than those I’ve seen come & go at Walmart, it still amazed me that so many of the younger soldiers could be so lazy or maintain a seemingly shared sense of entitlement, even after having made it through IET.

          And it seemed to get worse as time went on; towards the end of my last enlistment, the biggest headaches I got as an NCO came from having to deal with increasing numbers of new privates who seriously believed that Army was supposed to cater to their every want & “needs”, or turned into sick-call rangers when it came to doing anything resembling PT.
          And when they didn’t get their way, the first thing they’d do was jump the chain-of-command and/or start making calls to IG (or worse, their Congressman).

        • In a way I agree. At a local department store, the cream of the crop is millennials, but eight start training and three are hired for every one who sticks. And at the Home Depot I go to the most, if you want expertise you ask one of the veterans, but if you want to find something you grab one of the younger set — who will, if you know the precise item you want, sprint back to get one (or more) for you so you don’t have to go clear across the store after it.

          But at minimum wage jobs, millennials seem to be like cannon fodder: they get hired, out out to deal with the work, and collapse, falling out to leave a space for another to come do the same.

        • You seem to be of the opinion that this slacker generation invented all this new technology,they didn’t,Bill Gates for example is in his 60’s,I could go on but I think you’ll get my point.I’m in my late 50’s and I have no problem with any of this new technology,I roll my eyes when some stupid cunt claims that her 3 year old granddaughter knows more about computers and such than she does,she must be stupid because a monkey can operate a computer or a cell phone,I see them walking down the street doing it all the time,just go to any large city and see it for yourself. And for the record,teenagers were rolling their eyes long before computers were available to the general public.

      • I can echo the same experience at UPS Freight…..they apply and get hired but if one in 10 is still there after 6 months it’s a minor miracle.

        When our trainer goes through trailing new hires I often quip, “More fodder for the cannon.” Then I have to explain that term to the young guys…

  5. The socialist slide started with the baby boomer generation (hippies), not the WWII generation.

    But yes, we owe gun control (Fuddism) to the WWII era AND baby boomer generations. Ronald Reagan, as much as he’s revered and (sometimes even honored with protecting gun rights) was a total Fudd and actively worked to support the Assault Weapons Ban.

      • The massive expansion of the Federal Government, which included a certain amount of socialism and enabled more later, began with FDR. Most of the “Greatest Generation” was in middle school or high school at that point.

        The “Greatest Generation’s” biggest sin was to be so wildly prosperous and successful that their children, the Boomers, took it all for granted and have been running this country into the ground.

        • The Boomers are the children of the Greatest Generation, mostly.

          But most people seem never to have heard of the Silent Generation. Those in middle school and high-school during FDR’s third term were the leading edge of the SG. They were largely apolitical non-confrontational, and very interested in money. They managed, with the tail of the GG, to get the best SSN benefits, pensions, and business growth if they were entrepreneurs. They sold us the rock musicians and drugs. They sold Playboy and Lyndon Johnson. The Silent Generation were those that were too young for WWII, but born before 1946.

        • I grew up with a lot of kids whose parents were determined to make sure their kids “Won’t have it as hard as we did”. That always bothered me, because I figured what made my parents what they were was how hard they had it. For the most part, everyone I knew turned out okay. The real problem started when they in turn didn’t want their kids to have it as hard as they had, when they hadn’t had it hard at all, and the result was, pretty predictably, a generation that felt entitled to whatever they wanted without working at it.

          The exceptions were those who found something they loved and threw themselves into it, because that same parental backing served to carry them along. But the majority, who see work as a necessary evil to get the paycheck they ‘deserve’, have no drive and no tolerance for actually having to exert themselves.

    • I think by the time the AWB came along in 1994, Reagan had been out of office for 6 years and was suffering from dementia. Claiming he “supported” AWB is kind of meaningless.

    • So, are you saying that based on the Hughes Amendment to the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986? An act that President Reagan wisely signed even though Hughes, a liberal from New Jersey (imagine that) put in his amendment at the last minute to torpedo an otherwise good bill. Why would a liberal want to tear down a bill that sought to undo many of the excesses of the Gun Control Act of 1968 if it was meeting their goals and pushing for gun control? They wouldn’t, flat out. Mr. Reagan had his share of screw ups, but he wasn’t “anti-gun” as some make him out to be, either.

    • Indeed,the filthy hippies of the 60’s are the liberal democrats that are running the country into the ground presently,it will be a good thing when they all die off.I still see them today running around,they are bald on top and grow what’s left long.

    • The “new assault weapons ban” was a last minute rider attached, by a NJ Democrat, to a 1986 firearm bill who’s goal was to protect private gun owners and FFL dealers from the abuses the ATF and other government agencies were committing at the time. For better or worse, Ronald Reagan decided that small bad portion of the bill wasn’t enough to veto the rest of it.

  6. Mixed feelings and conflicting, unresolved debate, in my mind.

    Yes, they survived the Great Depression. However, the government made it Great and prolonged in the first place; the government that generation elected.

    Yes, they won WWII. However, the government’s isolationism and tacit support of appeasement in the 1930s made the inevitable war World in the first place. Again, the government that generation installed.

    Overall, the generation dug themselves into a huge hole here and abroad, but did manage to climb their way out. Along the way, they sowed the seeds for the nonsense of the 1960s through today’s welfare state. They conveyed little of their patriotism and work ethic to subsequent generations. They laid the foundation for our transformation from the United States of America into los Estados Unidos, and made inevitable our coming dissolution into several new nations.

    I’d say the more deserving of the moniker (aside from the Founders and Framers) would be those who fought the Civil War (both sides) and built the nation thereafter.

    • “the government that generation elected.”
      Hardly. The government in power during the Great Depression was elected while the Greatest Generation was in diapers.

      I am perplexed, though, that the generation that grew up during the Great Depression and fought in WWII apparently didn’t pass along their character attributes to subsequent generations.

      • One of the things I’ve heard people of that generation say over and over again is that they wanted their children to have a better (and easier) life than they had. Did it create a sense of entitlement in their children? Unfortunately yes, in a lot of cases.

        • Every generation has it’s greats . Great leaders , developers , moral teachers and populace . Great parents , great military thinkers , great artist and thinkers outside the box . The failure isn’t so much in the greatness of the people in the system but the system they have either chosen to live in or the one chosen for them . If the folks who we are calling the greatest generation had the technology at their disposal we now have and the culture we are in today , perhaps we would be calling them something else . I , nor anyone else can say whether or not our grandfathers would have stayed home and played video games rather that storming Normandy or battling the Krauts at the battle of the Bulge or pushing the Japanese off of the Pacific Islands .
          Their choices were not nearly as varied as ours are today . Do you want to dig the soil and toil or sweat in the 100 degree heat of the smelter furnaces or any of the other assembling and manufacturing jobs of the 1930’s and 40’s or go across the ocean and fight the bad guys ? Hollywood glamorized the soldier and Rosie the riveter too so there was the added influence of media . The point isn’t really that humans were better then as opposed to today . Culture is different . Morality has fallen to technology and our God is now in the palm of our hands .
          My father in law was an infantryman in the 12th Armored Division in 1943-45 and fought against 2 German Panzer Divisions , heavily out gunned , in the battle of Herrlisheim . He helped secure the passage through the Rhineland and led the way for our victory in the Battle of the Bulge and Hitler’s plan in the Colmar pocket . He was one of Patton’s night drivers , driving with the headlights occluded to small slits . When Patton took the 12th up and across the Rhine had all the insignias and patches removed from their uniforms and the decals from the vehicles so the Germans wouldn’t know who they were with . They were known in paperwork at the time only as Patton’s Mystery Division to the Germans as the Suicide Division , but to history , they are known as the Hellcats . They blew up bridges , captured bridges and bridgeheads , and built bridges all along the 125 mile stretch along the Rhine valley . He was pinned down for several very long days and nights in the town of Herrlisheim where they had to conserve their ammo because we were unable to reinforce them . He didn’t talk much about any of his days while there or the fact that he was part of the men that open the gates of two concentration camps . He did talk about the snapping sound of a high caliber bullet whizzing at more that 2000 fps over his head and how cold and wet it was being pinned down like he was and how terrible it was to lose friends beside you to enemy fire . He didn’t mention that 70 men were shot dead in a field by the Germans after being captured and that we lost dozens of tanks and nearly lost the battle there . To me , Mr. Davis was a GREAT American and I am honored to have know him and to have married his lovely daughter , my soul mate .

    • “I’d say the more deserving of the moniker (aside from the Founders and Framers) would be those who fought the Civil War (both sides) and built the nation thereafter.”

      Absolutely. That war was easily as gruesome and nasty as WWII, and was probably a worse experience for the average soldier. It’s also the last American war that posed a direct existential risk to the country. Hitler and Tojo were evil shits that needed to be stopped, but there was no realistic outcome of WWII that was going to end in the death of America.

      And then, after the Civil War, that generation went on to become a massive wave of migration, homesteading the frontier areas with little outside support. It takes a lot more toughness to pack up all your belongings and head a thousand miles into unknown territory to carve a new life out of the wilderness than it does to come back from the war and go to work for General Motors.

      The WWII generation accomplished some amazing feats, but their grandparents would probably have considered them as soft and weak as some people here think the Millennial generation is.

  7. It would be difficult not to make the point that the founding fathers’ generation was not the “greatest” as they had the most to lose, and made the most radical changes in their society. I agree that socialism made the strongest in-roads during the 1930’s and 1940’s, as well as the fact that our society was still not fully integrated along racial lines. Also, it was argued back then that we had no business intervening in Europe, and in hindsight, our assistance in that war secured the 60 year long reign of a Soviet empire over much of Europe. Letting the Nazi’s slug it out with the Russians would have been much better in the long run, as they would likely have ground each other down and opened the possibility for regime change in both nations. I will not argue that the work ethnic was better, but then remember that the baby boomers were spoiled rotten by the “greatest generation” and look at the damage that the boomers did.

  8. As an immediate descendant of the greatest generation, I must declare I was blessed…my parents did not sub scribe to the theory that “my kid is gonna have it better than me”, a theory that propelled too many of the “greatest” to eliminate from their children’s lives, the very backbone of what made the “greatest” the greatest. My parents trained me for adulthood. Too many other parents trained their children to remain children, and those children used that as a blueprint for future generations. My parents were not privileged, my dad was career military, moved alot, and my brother and I were raised in what was essentially a single-parent family. And so were most of the kids we grew-up with. But military families were always a minority (No, I can’t explain how liberals can be in the military and hold leftist views).

    The greatness of the “greatest” generation ended with that generation still alive. That always fascinated me; greatness disappeared in the life-times of those who were “the greatest”. Is that how all nations declined? Subverted by the very people who fueled the greatest national achievements? I always thought somehow the slides into oblivion happened only after “the greatest” were gone, and could not prevent decline.

    So it is a blessing and a tragedy that I will see this nation’s greatest moment, and endure its destruction.

    • Today’s military service has a small percentage of liberals. The single largest group identify as conservative, followed by “non-political”, then libertarian.

      • My vision is blurred by the number of bleeding hearts I served with, especially senior officers who were on duty during WW2 and Korea.

  9. My grandfather was at Okinawa (and other battles in the Pacific) and he was a racist, sexist, violent, son of a bitch of a man who did not care about anyone’s freedom but his own.

    In other words he was a man. And unless I am completely mistaken, this nations founding was based on the very cornerstone of individual freedom. So he pretty much had it right.

    So yeah that selfish prick you call your grandfather, suspended his life, went to war and did heroic and horrific things in defense of freedom probably for no other reason than his country asked him to serve.

    Then he came home, banged your grandmother, raised his family never knowing they would turn out to be god damned hippie sh1tbags who support a welfare state. Who look at National Pride like its some kind of disease that needs to be eradicated. Who serve not for the higher calling of defending the greatest nation on earth but for a free college education that instills the very ideals your grandfather fought to defeat.

    It was the hell spawn that the WWII generation sired known as the baby boomers that fvcked this country up. So blame your parents.

    Your grandfather is probably wishing he died on Okinawa, seeing what a giant mangina his grandson has become.

    • Liked your response, but it is a bit off-target. Boomers did not raise themselves. They did not establish their own life rules. They did not move out of the house as infants, and live in communes of other infants, making things up as they went along. They did not escape and “live free” of the influences of their parents.

      They were molded.

      • Yep. Molded. By television. Hollywood and NYC sold the vision of the US as broadly rich and living interesting and affluent lives. Every poor or average family could learn to feel little, resentful, eager to withdraw.

        Those, the vast majority, who were children of the lower middle class, felt cheated. They took to pretending they, too, were on easy street, though the ‘interesting’ in their lives was all in a video game and a few late-night shows composed mostly of snide and politically correct humor, humor as Aristotle defined it, as “educated insolence.”

        In time, of course, minority politicians sold their people the lie, that whites (a majority if you thought they were one group) had it good, had been handed a land of plenty. The story left out the hardships of settling the east, then, very hard, the mid-west. Slavery? It was almost universal until the late 1800’s. Indentured servitud? That built the original colonies. Slavery light. The world went from hard (food was always in shortage) to easy (food is free with food stamps, and food is cheap if you have any job at all) in a historic hurry.

        Now the vast majority in the US are getting poor again, riding the train of usurious credit card interest and every-rising real estate taxes. What will they do when, if, they every wake up?

        • Roping,
          As long as the welfare gravy train continues the masses won’t wake up. They don’t care because someone else is always paying their way. Look at Germany. Ethnic white Germans are mostly childless or have only one child because the ruinous taxation rates make having children too expensive but they can’t make themselves give up the cradle to grave social welfare systems they know are killing them. Italy is even worse.

        • There is , or seems to be , a missing piece to the puzzle here that one should at least consider . The downward trends in our culture that most of us recognize , obviously , referring to the here and now as something less that the greatest generation , came about , or parallels , the changing from a culture of savers and helpers to a culture of consumers and hoarders . Materialism is the single key that connects all the tumblers and allows us to open the door to us being less than great . Materialism is the key to what happened to the Babylonians at the Tower of Babel , if you believe in this event . Bricks were their ‘ I Phones .

          • what i see is not materialism, but “do your own thing, and don’t criticize mine”. more like plain ol’ selfishness or self-centeredness.

  10. It is my opinion that the main socialist push began under FDR. There were other times in our history when socialism reared its ugly head. But FDR, an acknowledged socialist, really put the wheels in motion. And yes, that did occur on the Greatest Generation’s watch. But you cannot continue to blame them when the subsequent generations, I am a baby boomer, have allowed things to continue. Just because someone starts something does not mean someone else cannot stop it. We have all allowed the government to continue the massive power grab. We have a president who has made himself king. And now that we the people have given that power over it will never come back. Now, since this is a gun forum I will finish with this; you had better buy your guns and ammo now. And make your provision holds secure. No, I am not a survivalist or a conspiracy theorist. Just a realist.

    • Well Anon in CT actually has a point and many if not most of them were not responsible for FDR. My grandfather for example was 20 years old when Pearl Harbor happened, and joined the military a week later. At the time the voting age was 21 so he still was ineligible to vote. so the ones who were responsible for the start of the slide to socialism were people that were 21 and older in 1932.

  11. Not that I am a fan, but I’d posit that the Soviets had more to do with beating the NAZIs than the US did. The Japanese also never stood a chance and screwed up pretty much every way they could after that.
    The westward expansion folks were pretty tough too.

    • Sure, but not only did the USA create and lavishly equip a huge Army (including air forces), Navy and Marine Corps from almost scratch, America also provided the vehicles and other equipment to outfit tens of millions of Soviet, British and Commonwealth, and Nationalist Chinese troops. Sure the Soviets lost, what, 40x the number of lives as the USA, but no other nation had the industrial might and magic to be the Arsenal of Democracy.

      • BINGO! We have a winner. The Soviets wouldn’t have done what they did without Western (mostly American) military aid, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. And they lost so many people because Stalin was a megalomaniac and didn’t care how many were killed, heck, he probably got off on all that death.

      • The Battle of Moscow was over before significant US aid started coming in. Germany was in deep weeds already by that point.

        • You’re wasting your time. This crowd and their ilk will perform all manner of mental gymnastics to try to make their claims correct, no matter how many facts you provide.

      • @Anon in CT, there is no doubt that our industrial might aided the Russians. But we did not produce a single T-34, nor a single Yak-3, nor a single Katyusha, Mosin rifle or PPSh-41 during all of WW2. We provided Studebaker trucks and Bell P-39 Airacobras, both of which provided excellent service to the Red Army. But they provided the blood.

        The German armed forces suffered up to 90% of its military deaths and equipment losses on the Eastern Front. By the time the Allies landed on Normandy, the Germans were already defeated. They just didn’t know it, although Hitler did.

        The Stalingrad battle, which ended four months before D-Day, resulted in the complete destruction of the 6th Army, which was the German’s largest formation in the entire war. When we were still struggling in the Bocage, the Reds won the field at Kursk, at a huge cost in men and material.

        While the primary purpose of the Allied invasion was to liberate France and the low countries, the secondary purpose was to protect Western Europe from the Soviets. The Red Army could have rolled right over the Germans and right up to the Atlantic.

        • It’s a complicated topic. A lot of stuff that came through lend-lease was actually raw materials. For example, US supplied a significant proportion of gunpowder and steel, from which Soviet factories deep in the rear then manufactured rounds for those Mosins and turrets for those T-34s. Given that Soviets have essentially won the war by securing their industrial capability in Urals and then outproducing the Germans, lend lease made a very significant contribution.

          My personal take on it is that USSR would have won eventually even without it, simply because they had the manpower reserves necessary to draw it out long enough for Germans to choke on their blitzkrieg (just as it happened in 1941 under Moscow), and from there it would be a long, stretched-out brawl that would be one by whoever had more determination and more industrial capacity, and that was the USSR. But American aid had probably shaven at least a year off the total time to victory, and a couple million of casualties.

        • The trucks were absolutely a war winner. The red army lost a lot of men and material in the opening stages of the war. Without that flow of trucks the red army would have been afoot. And those trucks were vital in relocating the russian factories, in itself a major and much needed undertaking.

          And something else we provided the russians which was vital at this stage of the war was food. The germans had turn the bread baskets of the soviet union into battlefields.

          You could make an argument that spam was a major factor in the defeat of the germans.

        • US trucks and RR locomotives/rolling stock kept the commies alive.

          The tanks from the UK, and later the US, were a huge (and much under reported/under credited) part of the success of their battlefield success. The without the tanks and supplies the UK sent (at a tremendous sacrifice) the Russians would have folded in 1942. The Russian tanks were plentiful POS.

          • T-34 was “plentiful POS”, really?

            It’s a good thing that Germans didn’t know, saying things like “We had nothing comparable”.

        • Even the Germans stated that if it were not for all of the combat support equipment provided by the Americans, the great Russian offensives would not have been possible. ALL of the combat support equipment used by the Russians was provided by the USA.

      • The Soviets had tens of thousands of artillery guns and not enough heavy trucks to get them to the battle , enter USA and Detroit . If it were not for a steady supply of Detroit made trucks to the Russians in the 41-43 years , it is arguable that Germany would have pushed far enough into Russia to win the war there and maybe the war altogether .

          • Ford and GM has functioning plants in Germany all through the war. Even filed (and received) huge war reparations from the US for their destroyed property in Germany. Oddly, the German government paid licensing fees and royalties to the manufacturers (via Switzerland) up until there was no more German government.

            • So did Coke. Lots of Companies were there and supported Hitler. They made money from both sides before during and after the war.

  12. Have true. The Greatest Generation was politically dominant from JFK through Bush 41 and they missed a big opportunity to fix the entitlement problem in the 1980s. All the other stuff is kind of minor league. Drugs were illegal for decades before JFK. Gun control existed for quite a while too. The “slide to socialism” started in the 1930’s which was run by the pre-WWI generation.

    So all the comments quoted show the usual ignorance of history.

  13. Like some others here, I’m pretty conflicted about the WWII generation. My dad lied his way into the Navy at age 16 (got one of his teachers to lie for him, then got his mom to lie for him by telling her how much trouble other folks would get into if she didn’t). Went ballistic on a co-worker in later years when the guy suggested the Navy let him in as a “hardship case”, because to him, “hardship case” meant someone who was on government “relief”. Worked from the time he was 14 to support his family. But the seeds of a lot of the nonsense we find ourselves in today were indeed sown immediately prior to and during the War, including not just economic/political stuff but social changes chipping away at the traditional family unit (the “Father Knows Best”, “Leave It To Beaver” image of the 50s notwithstanding). Some people see that as a good thing, but I do not for the most part.

  15. I respect the work ethic of the “Greatest” generation and how hard they worked to survive. I also have the utmost respect for their efforts to stop the Axis powers from taking over the world.

    I also have to call a spade a spade. Their generation tacitly supported:
    (1) The Federal Reserve Act of 1913
    (2) The Sixteenth Amendment (1913) to the U.S. Constitution
    (3) Illegal seizure of personal property (gold) in 1933-1934. (Presidential executive order 6102 and the Gold Reserve Act of 1934)
    (4) The National Firearms Act of 1934.
    (5) The Social Security Act of 1935
    (6) The “Great Society” entitlement programs of the 1960s.
    (7) The Gun Control Act of 1968.

    In the span of just 55 years all of these items turned our nation upside down and established that fedzilla could and would do whatever it wanted … and no one would even raise a stink about it much less stop it.

    Those laws violate our rights and enabled politicians and bureaucrats to bankrupt our nation. That is on the “Greatest” generation. That is not a legacy to be proud of.

      • Curtis,

        A person who was 26 years old at the start of World War II was 19 years old in 1933 — that is old enough to vote for the politicians who enacted the laws of 1933 through 1935. Furthermore, that same person was old enough to vote for politicians to immediately repeal those laws in the 1940s and beyond. Is a person who was 26 years old at the start of World War II not of the “Greatest Generation”?

        And please share what the “Greatest Generation” did to repeal all of those federal legislative and executive actions in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

        • 19 years old in 1933 — that is old enough to vote

          In 1933, the Federal voting age was 21. It became 18 via the 26th Amendment which was ratified in 1971.

          Otherwise, you math isn’t too far off the mark. The average man who fought in World War II was, in fact, about 26 years of age. This includes all grades and all years, so it’s difficult to find the average age of an American soldier in 1941-1942.

        • The greatest generation did exactly the same thing that my generation and yours and every one since has down to repeal those laws. Nothing.

          Everybody always wants to blame others for the problems. Nobody wants to get in the dirt and fix them.

  16. I agree with the “Toughest Generation” descriptor (for modern times), and reserve the title of “Greatest American Generation” to the brave patriots who were instrumental in fighting the British, writing the Declaration of Independence, and establishing our Constitutional Republic.

    The growth of socialism is an inevitable and direct result of two of the seven Cardinal Sins: Greed & Envy. Not much society can do to change human nature and voting habits that promote gov’t stealing what is not rightfully not theirs to take, to transfer to another who has not earned the legitimate right to receive it…..

  17. Personally I’m very tired of the Tom Brokaw inspired “Greatest Generation” claptrap. This is nothing more than “Progressive ” propaganda and people who repeat it are just useful idiots for a world view they don’t even support. This is the generation that fought the most destructive war in world history IN ORDER TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR SOCIALISM! Then they launched a decades long cold war against their former ally, the mass murdering demon Uncle Joe Stalin. We have been at war ever since. You can thank the World War II generation for the cancerous and uncontrolled growth of the liberty and prosperity destroying Welfare/Warfare state.

    You can also thank them for the War On Guns (1968 Gun Control Act), deficit spending without limits (Reagan, Bush 1 & Bush 2), chronic monetary inflation that has reduced the purchasing power of the dollar by 97%, income tax withholding (Milton Freidman’s brainchild), the annihilation of freedom of association (Civil Rights Act of 1964), the institutionalization of the environmentalist religion (EPA, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, etc.), creation of the privacy destroying NSA and the dictator loving, democratic government overthrowing CIA. For the sake of brevity I will stop here, but the list could go on and on and on.

    • DG, if Brokaw had titled his book “An Okay Generation” or “A Generation That Didn’t Suck,” he wouldn’t have sold any books.

    • Hhhhmmm. Based on your theory, WW2 had a socialist America fighting a socialist Germany who was at war with a Socialist Russia (the other republics didn’t count for much).

      Most interesting.

    • Thank you for your honesty and cutting down the myth of the “greatest generation” they fought against tyranny only to sell out America, and our Liberty to domestic Leftist scum.

  18. The WWII generation was comprised of okay people and most did not really want to fight on the front lines in the war. A lot of the folks of that generation were fairly materialistic having come out of the depression, so having a nice house, cars, clothes, and color TVs were rather important to them. The WWII generation had a lot more trust in the government than the WWI generation.
    It was sort of interesting in that the WWI generation really did not think that the WWII generation was that much of the greatest generation and really looked down on them in many ways. The WWI generation was a horse of a different color than the WWII generation and was quite a bit tougher.
    I think the Baby Boomers were spoiled by the WWII generation, but they did want at least the best that they could materially provide to their kids.

    • About 2/3 of the WW2 American military was composed of conscripts. About 2/3 who served in Vietnam were volunteers. That’s just the opposite of what we’ve been told, right?

      But I’ll bet that all of them — draftee or volunteer — just wanted to get home safe.

      • Dad was drafted and really did not want to be fighting in the front lines. He did about everything he could to not be in combat infantry all the time he was in the ETO. The Army finally shoved him into Infantry when he was sent to the PTO. He fought in Luzon and was supposed to invade Kyushu. Thank God, they dropped the bomb!

  19. I can say with a straight face that I have a lot more respect for the WWI generation than the WWII generation as I was raised and lived with both for about the same amount of time when I was younger.

  20. Last year I stood on the bluff at Omaha Beach, with 10,000 of the greatest generation at my back, and wondered how anyone made it ashore alive there. It was not like the movies, it was a bluff 200 feet high with a small swamp for a beach. At low tide, with the water some 10 meters lower, the beach was a long run to cover.
    It wasn’t one individual that made them the greatest, but the 10s of thousands who did. How many of you have been back to see the house you lived in as a highschooler? I have, and I have a home three times the size with all the modern appliances and hot and cold running everything all because of what my fathers (and yours and yours and yours) military service made possible. Yes, if it just him probably nothing much would have come if it, but it wasn’t. It was those 10s of thousands, 400,000 of whom gave all in the process. We can build no monuments of granite and steel, brass and marble, that will provide due respect for what they did. We can remember what they achieved. So yes, I vote them as the greatest.

  21. My Dad was at Luzon and he was a non-racist, not much of a sexist, not very violent, decent man who did care about other people’s freedom. He just did not want to be in the Infantry and did not want to die for his Country; but to have the other SOB die for his honorable son of heaven emperor.

  23. No generation, mine and yours, will stand up to the 24/7 scrutiny of the interwebz.

    Regardless of generation, people are people and we all have good and bad moments. I served in the military when some of the greatest generation were still on active duty. They were just human beings, same as you and me.

    We all have greatness in us. We all also have great evil in us. None of us can withstand the 24/7 scrutiny common now.

  24. I blame the “Greatest Generation” for giving us Boomers. While the country may have begun to slide under the Greatests, the Boomers gave it a big shove.

  25. Ah the greatest generation… Fought Hitler, came home to be functionaries for George Wallace… Every excess of the left you despise is a direct result of the greatest generation coming home and failing to learn that racial apartheid should not be tolerated. It took their kids to shame them into that realization.

  26. Maybe totally unrelated, but in 1986 I walked to school even when it was 10 below zero with a 30 below zero windchill. Sometimes I didn’t wear a hat, and took a shower right before I walked to school. I liked it when my wet hair actually froze to my head. Those shenanigans clearly caused brain damage, as I’ve spent most of my adult life working for the government.

    Now I’m working a case where a 92 year old woman tried to stab one of my officers with a pen. The officer grabbed her wrist to stop the pen from striking home, and got bit in the hand. He wasn’t injured due to wearing Mechanix gloves. All the guys showed restraint and there was no force used other than physically carrying her out of the building for resisting arrest and trespassing. No arrest and she’s going to the hospital for minor abrasions to her wrists and a dementia evaluation. I’m just doing a report for liability reasons.

    Whatever the “Greatest Generation” gave us, their mental and physical health is in serious decline.

  27. Its not about war, its not the measure of a man today.

    The reason today’s generation men are lazy because of compression of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are compress into a smaller stack. 1st the 60’s sexual revolution is in full fruition. Sexual freedom without guilt, today’s youngsters hook up, meaning no real effort to have sex. A BJ is “normal” and par for friends. Second is the internet. More information is available and people are share and disseminate ideas or concepts at a greater rate than any time in history. Finally the smartphone or tablet…portable viewing device.

    Our generation had to work to get things. TV, sound system, records, reel to reel tapes, phone, apartment, car. Each at a high cost. Smart phone and internet changed all that. For 100 bucks a month a guy has all the porn, football, gaming, music, news he wants. Room in the basement, a hook up and an iPad he can be serviced in his lazy boy, using all three at a relative low cost. Why would he want to work his ass off, when his needs are compressed to a point that low effort satisfies his desires?

    • Great point. I really get scared when I think about how screwed up this country will be when my generation takes over.

  28. I have no idea if they were the “greatest”-they did what they had to do. Or told to do. All I know is all through the late 60’s and early 70’s I worried about being drafted and going to Vietnam. It didn’t happen through luck and good fortune. If there was a REAL threat to America I would volunteer in a second. THAT was WW2-not WW1,Korea,Vietnam,Panama,the Gulf War.Iraq or Afghanistan. And I have NO guilt being a baby boomer…

  30. “Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him, better take a closer look at the American Indian.”

    – Henry Ford

    “The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”

    – Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

    “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

    – Thomas Jefferson

    “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

    – Norman Thomas (US Socialist Presidential Candidate)

    “What are we going to do if citizens are disarmed,
    and the government doesn’t obey its own laws?”

    – Jeff Cooper

    “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

    – H.L. Mencken

    “If you put our federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there would be a shortage of sand.”

    – Milton Friedman

    And finally –

    “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
    A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates
    who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship”

    – Alexander Tytler 1787

  31. I’ve always loved that Milton Friedman quote , He was the best at pointing out the follies of Liberalism I’ve ever read or watched . Absolute hero of mine .
    If anyone here is unfamiliar with M. Friedman I would highly recommend you do a little google search . Ronald Reagan was an admirer of Milton .

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