Memorial Day: Generation X bonds with the Greatest Generation; Baby Boomer Mistakes - Forgiven

By: Steve Yuhas

For people born between 1965 and 1981 we’ve earned the moniker Generation X and a reputation for being self-centered, arrogant, ignorant and oblivious to the events of the world that our Baby Boomer parents used to cringe that we couldn’t find things to protest.  For decades Generation X was trapped between the need to distinguish ourselves from our parents' desire to bring down the American way of life and end America's superiority in the world that some in our generation just lived up to the stereotype.  Fortunately, there is a new calling for Generation X and it has out shined our Baby Boomer parents to the point where their relevance and catastrophic leadership has outlived its usefulness.

It used to be that Generation X was a pejorative, but as we remember Memorial Day in 2005 all of the doubts about the generation of which millions of American men and women belong are gone.

Living up to the standards that Baby Boomers produced us would have been simple: hate government and distrust corporate institutions, take no personal responsibility in your personal/sexual life, protest at every opportunity, talk about saving the planet (while doing exactly the opposite of what you insist others do), install liberals at every opportunity and redistribute wealth from those who earned it to those who didn’t – regardless of why.

Luckily for America, and because America’s role in the world is vastly more important than any other, lucky for the world; Generation X has changed the nation in a way that only a generation that followed a flawed one could.  All with the images and stories from the Greatest Generation to guide us in our quest to return America to glory rather than mediocrity.

The Baby Boomers resulted from the return of gallant heroes and heroines from World War II and gave us a culture that didn’t care about life (their most important achievement in that realm being Roe v. Wade); whose selfish overindulgences made the quest for the American dream play out in movies where phraseology like “greed is good” made us a target for those who hated us and gave us a political system whereby their elected officials (Bill Clinton is the best example) are not held to account for free love in the White House and where personal responsibility consisted of simply saying, “I’m sorry” with a few tears running down your cheeks.

Every generation has a moment in time that defines them: the World War II (The Greatest Generation) was defined by Pearl Harbor and WWII after saving the planet from the ravages of Nazism and the quest for empire by Japan. 

Baby Boomers are defined by their own leaders who proudly burned American flags to protest the war in Vietnam (even while their own brothers and sisters were fighting to save millions of people from the tyranny of Communism or prisoners of war being tortured using the words of the protestors) and by people like John Kerry and Jane Fonda.

And, Generation X will always be associated with September 11, 2001 when Islamic fundamentalists used aircraft as missiles to destroy building and lives at the World Trade Center complex in New York, the Pentagon in Virginia and in a single aircraft in a field in Pennsylvania.

The leadership of the nation is decidedly Baby Boomer; thankfully they’re right thinking Boomers, who are taking out terrorists wherever they’re found and are leading a group of Generation Xers who defy their parents’ selfish generational paradigm and defend freedom for America and help give it to others. 

Combatant commanders in the military today lead battalions of Generation Xers into battle and spit in the face of the selfishness and “me first” attitudes of their parents.  The people on the front lines of freedom are people whose sacrifice is not lost on those of us who live freely in America as they take the battle to the enemy rather than fighting them here at home.

Out of this war on terrorism, that will be a long struggle, there have come heroes who gave their lives for their nation and their friends on the battlefield without regard to the protests around the world organized mainly by their parents because they volunteered to serve their nation and in doing so, the world. 

Out of this conflict a generation that was once defined by others as video game happy group of slackers are men and women who redefined their entire generation and put themselves in harms way on our behalf.  One can be proud to be part of the second greatest generation - Generation X.

Still, many in the generation that begat us forgets how they received the freedom to protest their country in their mid 40s and early 50s by donning their anti-American t-shirts while displaying the American flag upside down, but they do it all the while forgetting that it is Generation X providing the blanket of security for them to do it.  It doesn't seem to matter that while people desperately grasping for their youth protest that their children are sleeping under a proudly flying, correctly waving, flag in places around the world.

And, out of Generation X, formerly defined by who their parents were instead of whom they were, are men and women who are patted on the back and tearfully reunited with America with the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other military organizations proudly looking on.  They’re saluted by 70 and 80 year-old hands trembling from the fatigue of life, but whose thoughts must be of relief that America is now in the hands of Generation X rather than Baby Boomers who didn’t seem to care about anything other than themselves.

Young men and women return to the United States either to be reunited with their family, to receive medical treatment for their injuries or burial because of their sacrifice.  Whatever the case one can’t help but notice that the people who line the docks or anxiously await the aircraft are a generation removed, other than parents, from the generation doing the fighting.

With this Memorial Day 2005 it can be said that Generation X has corrected the ills of the Baby Boomers and that although technology has changed and when radio once brought news of battle into the American consciousness the 24 hour news cycle does it now; there has become a kinship between the Greatest Generation and Generation X.  A kinship that takes a generation to cultivate, but one that will last forever.

There is a saying that when a generation makes a mistake it is corrected by the generation that follows and there is no question that the Baby Boomers have made their share of mistakes in government and in private industry. 

But, as you remember those who fell in battle from the Revolutionary War until today and as the sun sets behind a waving American flag, rest peacefully because Generation X has defined itself as a brave and powerful generation fixing the problems of the Baby Boomers and returning the honor and integrity of the Greatest Generation to the American people once again.

To all those in uniform thank you for your service, for those who wore the uniform honorably thank you for yours, for the Greatest Generation who kept us safe from tyranny and aggression – we honor you.  To the Baby Boomers – continue to grasp your youthful protesting and continue to bash America, but don’t worry: Generation X forgives you and will continue to fix the problems you created when you took over the reigns from the Greatest Generation.

Steve Yuhas is a columnist and radio talk show host on KOGO AM 600 out of San Diego.  He may be reached at steve@steveyuhas.com or www.steveyuhas.com