A few thoughts about the Greatest Generation

World War II: For kids today it is represented by the art of movies, or perhaps in holidays, the origin of some forgotten over time. But for those who fought World War II, and for those of us who were their children, that war will not be forgotten in this lifetime.

I am an American, of Irish ancestry, and so I inevitably see the war through that lens. But, my father was an American soldier. His brother, a U.S. sailor, and my mother's two cousins were also in the U.S. Army. So first I see it that way.

The "Greatest Generation," as it is called, saved the planet earth from ultimate evil. I am not speaking to younger people in this because they largely have no idea what the heck I am talking about. In ways that is good and in ways that is bad. Regardless, it is so.

While all the acclaim there is should immortally be given to those who fought the war, and those who supported it so ardently back home, there are many of us from my generation and earlier who recall the larger cost.

My father was born in 1918. He was just one among millions to fight in World War II. His Dad, who fought World War I for the Americans as an Infantryman, was deployed while my father was born. My grandfather fighting World War I left the man profoundly injured, in many ways, upon his return. It shaped my father. Changed his future from what it might have been. Then, my father, a combat soldier throughout World War II (who was federalized in 1939) was also left broken in many ways for the rest of his life.

As much as the Greatest Generation saved the world for all of the tomorrows that happened, all of the good, it came at a price that seems to have never finished getting paid. Their grandchildren and great grandchildren live in a free world, bought at the expense of their blood, molded in the shape of their sacrifice. My father's brother, David Purcell, died at just 19 years old at Anzio. I never met him. My kids never met their uncle. He was absent. My mother's youngest cousin, Harry Smith, was in a tank-killing unit and, upon his return from Europe, was a hopeless alcoholic until his death in the 1980s. His brother, Johnny Smith, a ball turret gunner, lost most of his hearing and suffered deeply from PTSD. All gave some, some gave all, and many gave more than they could, is how I understood these sacrifices very early on.

For those who know me, my father and I never did get along very well. It was not the ideal father-son match. It was not even a very good one. But I also understand the enormous sacrifices he made, have an inkling of what the man went through during the war, which changed him, and have compassion upon him for that, as much as I do not remove any responsibility for later issues from him either. Still, as a soldier, I have always appreciated his service, his tenacity and his ability.

The point? Well, I was watching "A Bridge Too Far" last night, the very movie that convinced me at 11 years old I was going to become a United States Paratrooper one day, and I saw it, as a man, not through the eyes of a child but through the eyes of a son who had sympathy for his father. What would the world have looked like without that damn war?

What was different about that generation from all others? In my opinion, the fate of the world itself. They did not fight for anything but the right of people not to be hauled out of their homes and shot to death point-blank in the street. And, they fought a grim reality for the best of reasons, in the face of unendurable hardship, with total victory (at all costs) being the only way to finish up the matter.

It marked them forever. For the good; for the bad. And, now I look at the world around me. It has been a long time since the war, or the baby boom that issued so many sons and daughters of veterans. But, the faded faces of those young people are still there in the minds of people of my experience. And, the costs are too.

Wars should never be greeted warmly. Death should never be welcomed by anyone for anyone else, Our Lord teaches us that much. But now and again, not as often as mankind is proven to like it albeit, but every now and again something has to get done. And, with a great big swallow and a step forward, someone has to make the bad stuff go away -- not only for the moment but for millennia to come. And, that generation was equal to the task.

It is a truly international world now, with no time for age-old grudges. For all the wonders that happened after the war, all of the inspiration that it ushered in -- even now I feel the sorrow of what might have been had those wonderful men and women who perished so long ago not had their course cut short, or pathway changed ahead of them.