| Brokaw salutes today’s seniors as The Greatest Generation | |
| By Leonard J. Hansen | |
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In times of national stress and need, ordinary people do extraordinary things so that their efforts can change the course of history. That is what happened during World War II - perhaps not earlier and perhaps not later - according to NBC newsman and anchor Tom Brokaw in print and on television. Those Americans who grew up in the 1920s and 30s, struggled through and survived the recession and then answered the nation’s call in World War II are called The Greatest Generation by Brokaw for what they achieved before, during and after the conflict. For Brokaw, born in 1940 and a young child during the time of WWII, the reality, immensity, carnage and seemingly unstoppable aggression of the Nazis and Axis powers in Europe and the Japanese in Asia and the Pacific became a personal discovery when he was preparing an NBC documentary in the spring of 1984 to mark the 40th anniversary of D-Day at Normandy in France. "I was well prepared with research on the planning for the invasion - the numbers of men, ships, airplanes, and other weapons involved, the tactical and strategic errors of the Germans; and the names of the Normandy villages that in the midst of battle provided critical support to the invaders. What I was not prepared for was how this experience would affect me emotionally," he writes. The television report included the participation of veterans of that bloody invasion, each telling of the event and what they remembered vividly of the terrain, events and opposition. D-Day and its importance as the battle which started to turn the tide against the Germans and the Axis powers were presented to the American public, making also a significant impression on the newsman who reported the story. Ten years later, Brokaw returned to Normandy to prepare yet another documentary, this for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. "When I arrived in Normandy, those memories had receded, replaced by days of innocence in the 50s, my life as a journalist covering the political turmoil brought on by Vietnam, the social upheaval of the 60s, and Watergate in the 70s. I was much more concerned about the prospects of a Cold War than the lessons of the war of my earlier years." But, in that program, as Brokaw writes, “I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had landed there and now returned for this anniversary, men in their 60s and 70s, and listened to their stories in the cafes and inns, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. I realized that they had been all around me as I was growing up and that I had failed to appreciate what they had been through and what they had accomplished." There was a greater story to be told, reasoned Brokaw, looking at the men and women of World War II and their lives before, during and following the war. The result is Brokaw’s first book, The Greatest Generation, in which he relates that those who protected the nation to save the world returned home to create the greatest advances in the country’s history. Gaining from their military training, "they stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor and faith.," states the newsman. Former President George Bush, Senators Bob Dole, Mark Hatfield and Daniel Inouye, Cabinet members George Schulz and Caspar Weinberger, and French Chef Julia Child are national figures profiled as World War II veterans - some as heroes - but most of the chapter stories tell of what Brokaw calls "ordinary people" who came from unremarkable early lives to become heroes in the battles to save the world and this nation. According to Brokaw, World War II was won because of the contributions of veterans like Charles O. Van Gorder, M.D., of Andrews, North Carolina, a front-line physician who, on capture by the Germans, treated prisoners in the concentration camps; Mary Louise Roberts Wilson, of Duncanville, Texas, whose duties and performance also on the front lines earned her the first Silver Star given to an Army Nurse; and Bob Bush of Raymond, Washington, a Navy medic who went to war to help people, not kill them, and did just that in the Pacific, earning the Medal of Honor for his heroic effort on the beaches of Okinawa. He tells also of Thomas Broderick of Chicago, Illinois, a promising premed student before enlisting in the Airborne, blinded from German gunfire in a savage battle in Holland, who returned home, refused to accept sightlessness as a liability, launched a career and then a successful insurance business, married and raised a family. "I am in awe of them, and I feel privileged to have been a witness to their lives and their sacrifices," writes Brokaw. "This is the greatest generation any society has ever produced." Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation, is a valuable recognition of today’s senior citizens who came through World War II, whether on the battle or home front. It is even more importantly vital reading by today’s younger generations so that they learn of and appreciate the role of people who sacrificed much or all to create the advantages, opportunities and freedoms of today in the United States. |
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