My So-Called “Greatest” Generation
My So-Called “Greatest” Generation
By Captain Timothy Hsia
This past Veteran’s day, several politicians and news outlets discussed the current generation of men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as the “next greatest generation.” By labeling my peers as the “next greatest generation,” politicians and the media seek to applaud and highlight the sacrifices of the young men and women fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the “next greatest generation” is an inappropriate moniker. In reality, many members of my generation do not understand the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This label of the “next greatest generation” is confusing for service members and the American public as a whole because it seeks to describe a generation when in fact it describes only a tiny segment of my generation. The truth is the vast majority of my generation spent their holiday season at the mall oblivious to the war while their military counterparts in the military served in harms way.
Class reunions for most colleges often do not begin until the fifth or tenth year after graduation. However, for my West Point classmates, deployments have served as class reunions. These brief reunions often occur when one’s unit replaces another, when they are being replaced by another unit just prior to redeployment home, or in Kuwait when one is either en route back home or heading into combat. Although I have met an abundance of West Point classmates in Iraq, I have yet to meet another soldier who graduated with me from my hometown.
I briefly spent some time with my high school classmates when I returned home two years ago during the holiday season. What struck me the most in my conversations with my peers was that they really did not care or seek to understand what was happening in Iraq or Afghanistan. Granted there are some young men and women who work for NGOs, civil governments, and work as political aides but they are few and far between. The social gap between my peers in uniform and our civilian counterparts seems to have widened due to the war. American young men and women quietly serve and shoulder the brunt of these wars while our civilian counterparts plan their careers and facebook online. Blogs and the internet have enabled those in Iraq and Afghanistan to communicate with their families. However, it has not narrowed the gap between those who are serving in harms way and civilians who live their lives blissfully unaware of IEDs, snipers, and an inability to share the holidays with family.
Hollywood, long seen as a bastion of the left, has actually done more to embrace the ambiguities and complexities of soldiers who have experienced war firsthand than the American people have. Many of the films and television shows produced thus far have sought to be apolitical while also striving to paint a complete portrait detailing the issues, moral tension, and daily difficulties of service members returning from combat. Thus far these war time movies have failed to arouse the American public. Commentators cite the lack of interest in these movies with the rationale that Americans seek to avoid reality when entering the movie theater. In actuality, the real reason Americans have not been drawn by the recent wave of war movies is because the war is not reality. It is as foreign to my generation who are not serving as Bollywood films. Serving in the military is by no means the only way to serve one’s country. However, if my generation is to become great, it must shrug off its solipsistic and narrow view of the world if America is to continue as a superpower.
Alan Ginsberg, the voice of the beat generation, will forever be remembered for the observation: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.” I would like to reword that line with the fresh memory of fallen West Point classmates to “I saw the best men of my generation killed while others merely looked on.” I hope the Iraq war does not define my generation. For those in my generation in the military, these have not been the best years of our lives. But if the war does become my generation’s lasting legacy, then my generation as a whole does not deserve to be called great.
Timothy K. Hsia is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. He is currently deployed on his second tour to Iraq.
