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A Generation Of Patriots

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Every generation faces the world as it was given to them, and strives to leave it safer for the next. For those who came of age in mid-20th century America, the challenges were particularly daunting. The Allied troops were victorious in World War II. It was also a victory every American man, woman, and child could share, because they knew exactly what they had to do ... and did it.

After a childhood overshadowed by the Great Depression, world war rushed these young men and women into adulthood. This generation's endurance and ingenuity brought no only wartime victory but unprecedented prosperity in the post-war years. In recognition of their courage and in gratitude for their efforts, many have called them the "Greatest Generation."

In World War II, America called you from your farms and your schools and your factories to defeat two of the most ruthless armies the world has known. In victory, America counted on you to extend a helping hand, to lift up a defeated foe. And in a lasting peace that has been your greatest legacy, America confirmed the power of freedom to transform the bitterest of enemies into the closest of friends.

During World War II the United States assembled, trained, and deployed into action the greatest fighting force in history. A juggernaut which brought victory after carrying the war across two oceans and into the heart of the enemies' territory.

Victory came at great cost. And many of the heroes who fought by your side would not live to make the return journey home. More than 400,000 Americans gave their lives in that war. At a funeral sermon delivered after a battle that had taken the lives of thousands of Americans, a rabbi said, "Out of this, and from this suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere."

The American soldier was rushed to a maturity for which he had not planned or even dreamed. He had been a student, a mechanic, an accountant, a farmer, and he was transformed suddenly into a soldier. His native resourcefulness and competitive spirit were so great that he conquered those enemy veterans whose military training and entire upbringing had been planned and unhurriedly developed to one end.

In August, 1940, Japan's army approximated 120 divisions. It was busily entrenching itself on the Asiatic mainland, and openly fortifying its outlying Pacific islands, most of which we later took at a heavy price. On the other side of the world a jubilant Nazi army of about 300 divisions was enjoying a brief rest before its planned attack on Britain across the English Channel. In one short year this army had crushed Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium, and had disposed of France in six weeks. Italy, with about 70 divisions, had just declared war, and was readying to strike the British in Egypt. To many, the axis military machine appeared invincible. In Western Europe, England alone remained free, and many doubted that she could stave off defeat.

Our forces carried the fight to the enemy all around the world, and forced him to the unconditional surrender to which this nation and its Allies had dedicated themselves. During the last two years of the war the victorious advance of the United States sea, air and land forces, together with those of our Allies, was virtually unchecked. They controlled the skies and the seas and no army could successfully oppose them. Behind these forces was the output of American farms and factories, exceeding any similar effort of man, so that the peoples everywhere with whom we were joined in the fight for decency and justice were able to reinforce their efforts through the aid of American ships, food, munitions and supplies.

Whether, because of these successes, this generation of Americans will keep in mind the black days of 1942 when the Japanese conquered all of Malaysia, occupied Burma and threatened India, while the German armies approached the Volga and the Suez, is open to question. Yet in those hours Germany and Japan came so close to complete domination of the world that we do not yet realize how thin the thread of Allied survival was stretched.

Though our effort was stupendous after Pearl Harbor - indeed, though it finally swung the scales to victory for the Allies - we can in good conscience take little credit for our part in staving off disaster in those early, critical days. It is certain that the refusal of our Allies to accept what appeared to be inevitable defeat was the great factor in the salvage of our own civilization. The security of the United States of America was saved by vast oceans, by Allies, and by the errors of the enemy. For probably the last time in the history of the world those ocean distances were a vital factor in our defense. If we elect again to depend on others and the whim and error of potential enemies, we will be carrying the treasure and freedom of this great nation in a fragile bag.

It was during those dark days that the American citizen who was to play so important a role as a soldier was forged into the fighting man who is respected and feared throughout the world. The magnitude of the task of hastily transforming citizens into sodliers is almost beyond comprehension. Faced on nearly every hand with highly trained and veteran enemies, the American high command hastily explored every means of raising, training and equipping forces that would carry the war to our enemies. World War II was the most technological of all man's struggles, but it put just as much emphasis on the soldier as did those wars waged with the short sword and the musket.

The scope of the national involvement was reflected in the numbers: by 1944, twelve million Americans were in uniform; war production represented 44 percent of the Gross National Product; there were almost nineteen million more workers than there had been five years earlier, and 35 percent of them were women. The nation was immersed in the war effort at every level.

The young Americans of this time constituted a generation birthmarked for greatness, a generation of Americans that would take its place in American history with the generations that had converted the North American wilderness into the United States and infused the new nation with self-determination embodied first in the Declaration of Independence and then in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

It may be historically premature to judge the greatness of a whole generation, but indisputably, there are common traits that cannot be denied. It is a generation that, by and large, made no demands of homage from those who followed and prospered economically, politically, and culturally because of its sacrifices. It is a generation of towering achievement and modest demeanor, a legacy of their formative years when they were participants in and witness to sacrifices of the highest order. They know how many of the best of their generation didn't make it to their early twenties, how many brilliant scientists, teachers, spiritual and business leaders, politicians and artists were lost in the ravages of the greatest war the world has seen.

The enduring contributions of this generation transcend gender. The world we know today was shaped not just on the front lines of combat. From the Great Depression forward, through the war and into the years of rebuilding and unparalleled progress on almost every front, women were essential to and leaders in the greatest national mobilization of resources and spirit the country had ever known. They were also distinctive in that they raised the place of their gender to new heights; they changed forever the perception and the reality of women in all the disciplines of American life.

Millions of men and women were involved in this tumultuous journey through adversity and achievement, despair and triumph. Certainly there were those who failed to measure up, but taken as a whole this generation did have a "rendezvous with destiny" that went well beyond the outsized expectations of President Roosevelt when he first issued that call to duty in 1936. "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

With hair whitened and steps slowed in age the rabbi's promise has come true. The freedom that was born of sacrifice has lifted millions of God's children across the Earth. This freedom is a monument to fallen friends, a gift to their children and grandchildren, and a sacred bond with generations of patriots past and present who have worn the nation's uniform.

Your faces show the same quiet resolve that defeated our enemies. It is a privilege to be the citizens of the country that you served. We pray that your comrades you have lost found peace with their Creator, and we honor your sacrifice by recommitting ourselves to the great ideals for which you fought and bled. In part: Excerpted from Your Ground Forces In Action by General of the Army George C. Marshall and The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw.

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