The Greatest Generation

[dedalus_1947]

One generation passes away,

and another generation cometh;

but the earth abideth forever…

The sun also rises,

and the sun goeth down,

and hastens to the place where he arose…

The wind goeth toward the south,

and turneth about unto the north;

it whirls about continually,

and the wind returneth again according to its circuits…

All the rivers run into the sea;

yet the sea is not full;

unto the place from whence the rivers come,

thither they return again.

(Ecclesiastes)

 

“It is I believe,

the greatest generation any society has ever produced”.

 (The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw)

 

 Muted drums beat softly in the background. Trumpets gained strength as a flag with 50 stars and 13 bars and stripes rustled in the wind, flying overhead. A family of 3 girls, a man, a woman and a child, followed in a procession behind their mother, who in turn was following her aging husband. They walked along a palisades pathway on the coast of France. The senior man leading this parade walked erect, remembering the cadence and rhythms of long ago drills and marches. He slows when he sees the flag flying over the entrance to a historic preserve. Now he hesitates and stops. His next step will be a journey in time, a time he had put behind him, a time that was past but ever present. Crosses, wave after wave of white marble crosses covered the lush verdant lawns, like lilies in a field of green. He walks across the field alone, going deeper and deeper along the marble corridors, until he falters. Feeling the magnetic pull of the energies still emanating from the soil below, his breathing becomes ragged and his eyes well up with tears. He stops in front of one cross and falls to one knee. His family, who had been following respectfully behind, suddenly rushes forward in alarm.

“Dad”, his son calls out, as he reaches his side, and kneels next to him. His mother, bending down on the other side, reaches out to touch her husband’s shoulder. The unrelenting onslaught of white marble crosses, row after row, had finally forced the man to his knees. So many lives, so many young, budding lives had ended here on the shores of Normandy. Looking past the cross that stood in front of him, he failed to read the inscription. The words were few and simple: Mike M. Martinez. Pvt. 35^th Inf. 90 Div. California, June 6, 1944. Instead, his gaze looked out to another time, a time far away when he was a boy, like Mike Martinez, in 1944, on D-Day.

 

Black, steel stanchions, X-shaped and pointing out like giant barbs of thick wire, dotted the Normandy beaches, awaiting the onslaught of landing vessels. They were the first line of defense against the anticipated invasion on the beaches the allies dubbed Omaha. They waited silently, immovably, betraying nothing of the deadlier defenses on the shore. The scenes appear to be in black and white, as were all the recorded images of that time. It was a black and white era, with choices and decisions that were grim and defined. Wave after wave of open air landing craft raced eastward, toward the pounding surf on the defended beaches ahead. Steel domes bordered the sides of the vessels. The boats looked like over-packed egg cartons of bouncing metal. This was the first wave, the first echelon of boats and men that would hit the beaches of Omaha.

 

A hand shaking from fatigue, nerves, and fear takes hold of a canteen and steadies it to twist open the cap, and then brings it up to his lips. The action calms him, and the water moistens the dryness of his mouth and lips. He has been here before, surrounded by grim, silent, and fearful soldiers, on fast moving boats. He was there in North Africa and Italy; each landing was different and yet the same. The fear was the same - that never changed. Fear cannot hide, it will show itself somehow; in the shaky hands, dry mouth, nausea, vomit, and silence - the unexplainable silence. As a veteran of other amphibious landings, he was confident that he would ACT in the coming encounter, but he was not sure of the ending. It was best not to think, but trust in your training, your instincts, and your actions. Use the fear, he told himself; it will keep you alert, smart, and alive. Don’t think, don’t think.

“Clear the ramp!” shouts the coxswain from his position in the stern, as he pilots the boat. “Thirty seconds! God be with you!”

“Port side stick, Starboard side stick”, the Captain barked out. He was the man with the shaking hand, and his commands free him to act in his chosen role as leader of this company of men. “Move fast and clear those murder holes”.

His sergeant, another veteran of many campaigns, moves between the crowded men giving more practical, live-saving advice. “I want to see plenty of beach between men”, he shouts. “5 men is a juicy opportunity, one man is a waste of ammo”. They are a team, this captain and sergeant, trading off with each other in an alternating rhythm of commands to prepare the men for action, and keeping their minds away from thinking of their doubts and fears.

“Keep the sand out of your weapons” yells the captain. “Keep those actions clear. I’ll see you on the beach”.

Shells begin to fall and splash. Explosions spray the boats with salt water. The steel shelled heads duck down and the soldiers huddle together even tighter. They hear the engine whine and throttle down. The veterans know what is coming. One reaches for his crucifix, another for his scapular medal; they are talismans of luck and faith. Nothing will be certain, and all will soon be chaos. Touching the cold metal around their necks ground them for a moment, and making the sign of the cross gives them hope. All is in God’s hands now.

 

A whistle blows, and the coxswain of the boat calls out “Open the murder holes”. Metal wheels turn and hatches are opened, and the landing ramp lowers to expose the first line of men to a sheet of hot lead from machine guns and long range cannons.

“Zing, zing, whine, boom, boom, pop, pop, zing, plop, thud…” a symphony of ugly, murderous sounds and explosions fill the air, and the first line of men fall, pushed back by the force of thudding bullets and tracers, entering and exiting soft skin and flesh. Steel helmets and cloth uniforms are no protection from high velocity projectiles and piercing bullets. Blood, flesh, metal, dirt, and debris go flying through the air as the after-birth of spewing lead. The only orderly sound in this mayhem of destruction is the regular staccato beat of machine gun fire coming from the ominous grey pill boxes on the shore, raking the boats and men. The soldiers are trapped at the entrance of the murderous ramp.

“Over the side” yells the Captain to the cowering back lines of soldiers who were shielded from the first rain of death. Forward movement is blocked by the piles of bleeding and lifeless bodies. The boat has become a death trap if they don’t move.

“Port and Starboard, over the side!” screams the Captain, and bodies begin rolling over the sides of the boat into the water. Port and Starboard (left and right) they roll, trying to stay clear of the killing bullets and flaming tracers. The Starboard was on the beach, but the Port was facing a deep trench. The men on that side, heavily equipped and weighted down by armor and weapons, sank into 8 feet of water. Bullets hissed, following them into the water as they sank. Blossoms of red sprouted from chests, backs, and legs, as jet streams of lead disappeared into their bodies; and the soldiers sank, lifelessly to the bottom of the channel. Loaded down and unprepared for a deep water encounter, some soldiers struggled vainly, in slow, under-water motions to free themselves from their weights. Eventually their movements stopped, and they floated gently to the bottom, finally at peace. Others kept their heads and breaths, and managed to swim, wade, or crawl back onto the beach. They emerged from the water and found cover behind the giant metal landing barriers that littered the beach.

 

“Rat tat tat, rat tat tat, zing, pop, zing, whine”. Bodies and bullets filled the shore and air. Soldiers were seeking protection behind the X-shaped obstacles as the bullets whined and ricocheted around them. Soldiers fell and died, but still more men moved forward, rifles at the ready, step by step. The machine guns were relentless, zeroing in on individual targets when no massed groups were available. Explosions sent geysers of water, sand, and bodies into the air. Hundreds of men were on the beach, well in front of the few landing crafts that still tried to make it to shore. The boats made the largest targets for the machine gunners. Another shell exploded on the beach, slicing an arm and a leg off of a flying, cart wheeling soldier. The concussion knocked the Captain back into the water. Crawling out of the crimson surf, the Captain stood up for a moment then fell to his knees. The water around him was fouled by blood. He pushed himself to another X-shaped barrier and looked around. He could not hear a sound, and his vision was peculiar. The morning had suddenly taken on a sepia colored glare. All the images were pixilated, like dots on magnified cartoon prints. Time and motion slowed down with the absence of sound, and he was suddenly a disinterested observer to the slaughter around him. Men cowering behind steel girders, flame throwing canisters bursting on the back of a soldier, sending plumes of liquid fire in all directions, and then exploding. The flames consumed the carrier and two men nearby. Another explosion sent a spry of blood across the face and head of the Captain. Slowly turning away, he saw another befuddled GI searching the shore and the bodies around him. He turned to reveal a socket-less, bleeding gap where his arm should have been; then bending down, with his remaining arm and hand, he picked up a sleeve with his missing appendage still inside. Package in hand, he hurried back to catch up to his squad. Looking further up the beach, he saw a landing craft explode in flames, and the fleeing men turned into human torches, running onto shore, or back into the surf. The captain’s eyes were dilated and vacant. Were these sights registering? Had he seen these images before, in other places? Was this the usual slaughter on the killing fields of landing beaches, or was this concentration of fire, bullets, and explosions different? He finally realized that he was bareheaded. Slowly and deliberately, he reached down to feel for his helmet. It was right there, next to his right knee. He carefully picked

it up with two hands, and lowering his head, he put it on. Warm, bloody salt water spilled down his head and face. His pupils finally contracted and he slowly focused on the face in front of him. A soldier was saying something to him, something he was starting to understand. Suddenly, like a shrieking bomb on the descent towards its target, all the sounds of the battle field rose to a whining crescendo and crashed; he could suddenly hear again.

“I said, what the hell do we do now, sir?”

It was one of the privates in his company, he was scared and confused. Looking around, the captain saw that the remains of a squad had rallied on him. Suddenly, out of this cacophony of sight, smell, and sound, he heard a familiar voice calling out.

“Captain Miller! Captain Miller!” It was the sergeant with another group of soldiers, on the near side of the beach, next to another X-shaped obstacle.

“Sergeant Horvath” he called back, “move your men off the beach! Go!”

“Okay, you guys” yelled the sergeant to his huddled men. “Get on my ass! Follow me!”

“What’s the rallying point?” yelled one of the Captain’s men, over the din of battle.

“Anywhere but here!” yelled back the Captain, slogging through the splashing surf, looking for cover on the beach ahead. The lapping surf was crowded with life, despite the carnage and death surrounding them, sucking them down. “The sea wall!” shouted the captain. “Move up to the sea wall!”

One of his men yelled back, “Sir, I’m staying!”

“Clear this beach!” screamed the captain at the paralyzed private. “Make way for the others!”

“This is all we got between us and the Almighty” the private whimpered back.

“Every inch of this beach has been pre-sighted!” the captain reasoned, in a strong reassuring voice. “You stay here, you’re dead men! He rose up from behind the girder, and through a hail of bullets jogged toward the sand wall. His men followed, ignoring a prostrated soldier, lying on his back, trying to push his bloody intestines back into his stomach, while calling out, “Mama, mama, aaaahhhh”.

Ignoring the calls of “Stay down, stay down”, the captain moved forward. Coming across another pocket of men, he stopped and shouted, “What are you guys?”

“104^th Medical Battalion, sir. Here to set up field operations!”

“Get rid of that crap!” the captain commanded. “Grab yourselves some weapons. Follow me!” With a larger contingent now, the captain continued moving forward, past the screaming and falling soldiers, the explosions and the bullets, toward the sea wall.

 

I chose to begin this story by describing the opening sequence of Steven Spielberg’s movie, Saving Private Ryan, because it was the most believable rendition of warfare I had ever seen. I’m sure I do the film a disservice by trying to encapsulate the 24 minutes of jarring cinematic combat into words. Seeing the events of D-Day through the eyes of Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) allowed me to come close to experiencing what an actual amphibious landing might have been like for my father and his brothers. Growing up in the post-war era of the late 40’s and 50’s, I saw many, many war movies on T.V. and in theatres; but none produced the visceral and emotional impact of Spielberg’s Academy Award winning opus of World War II. Classic war films like Sands of Iwo Jima, Back to Bataan, The Thin Red Line, The Longest Day, The Big Red One, and Patton, all pale before Saving Private Ryan. This was the movie that finally got it right. This was the film that most approximated the actual sights, sounds, and sensations of combat, and attempted to explain its effects on the generation of men who were marked and fired by the furnace of war. Those men were the only ones who could reliably and accurately describe the realities of combat – but they never did. Tom Brokaw called them “The Greatest Generation”; I just called them “Dads”.

 

My dad never talked about his combat experiences. He was proud of having served, but he did not describe the details of war, or explain his feelings about fighting. He would talk about the war as history, and discuss its campaigns, strategies, and generals. Movies were my only opportunities to question him about WW II. Over the years, I learned that he was a Marine, who, along with his two younger brothers, Alberto and Manuel, enlisted in September of 1942. He was assigned to sea duty on a cruiser and saw action in the Philippines, taking part in the Battle of Leyte. On board ship, he was assigned to Rear Admiral R.S.Berkey, Commander, Cruisers 7^th Fleet, manned the “ack-ack” (anti-aircraft) guns during battle stations, and assisted with the triage teams after air attacks. After the death of his two brothers during the Battle of the Bulge, he was transferred out of a combat zone and assigned to a base in San Diego, until the end of the war. The closest he came to mentioning death was while relating a triage incident on board ship. He and another Marine were checking casualties after an engagement, marking them as wounded or dead for the medical corpsmen. Quickly tying a marker on the chest of a non-breathing sailor and turning to move off, the supposedly dead man grabbed his leg, and in a muffled scream, as if waking from a nightmare, called out, “I’m not dead! I’m not dead!” It was a strange story to hear, and it did not fit my juvenile ideas of how heroic men acted under duress. The one time I dared to ask if he ever killed someone in the war, he silently considered my question for a minute or two, and then said “I’m not sure”. That was all he said. I didn’t know how to take that response, or his triage story. Eventually, as I got older and more self-absorbed, I stopped mentioning his wartime experiences and treated them as he did – repressed or forgotten memories. He and his generation simply became Dads. They were our fathers, working hard at their jobs, raising families, and getting older. These men were our heroes in grade school, our coaches and cheerleaders in junior and senior high school, and our critics in college. It was in college that a real separation occurred for me. Until that time my father’s opinions and beliefs were sacrosanct. However, in college there were books, authors, professors, and other students with different ideas, philosophies, and opinions – and they sounded better to me. When I disagreed with my father over Vietnam War and the Peace Movement, my mother took it as family disloyalty. She felt that my father deserved my unconditional respect and obedience.

 

Our relationship continued to be strained in discussions over politics and Vietnam, until my brother and I were drafted in 1970. That summer, I graduated from UCLA and my brother’s college deferment lapsed. Our lottery numbers were not high enough to avoid the escalating war effort’s need for more American soldiers. It was then that I saw another side of my father’s attitude toward service and war. He was no longer defending government policies and the need to fight communism, now he was counseling two sons who were drafted at a time of war. His first piece of advice was to not think of a minimal 2 year obligation as the best course of action or the quickest way home, but as a sure ticket to a shooting war in Vietnam.  The second was not to enlist in the Marines. My father was not a pacifist, but for the first time I saw a (former) Marine’s revulsion to conflict and death in battle. He wanted to keep us alive by offering the paradoxical option of embracing military service in the hope of avoiding combat. Although Arthur infuriated my Mom and Dad with his musings of fleeing to Canada, we finally decided that enlisting in the Air Force for four years gave us a better chance of evading a tour of duty in Vietnam. Our father died during the first year of our service; and we honored him by wearing our dress uniforms at the funeral.

 

My father’s death proved to be my passport out of the military, just as the deaths of his brothers in the Ardennes in December of 1944 was his. Arthur completed his duty in 1974. Despite our great reluctance in enlisting, we both came to the conclusion that military service had been a satisfactory and beneficial experience. Beside the practical benefits of the G.I. Bill and VA assistance, which allowed us to return to graduate school and college, our time in the Air Force gave us a glimpse of our father’s feelings about his own military experience. Our Dad told us that whenever he was feeling stressed or anxious about finances or work, he would have idyllic dreams of his days in the Marines. They were not nightmares of air attacks or amphibious landings, but of the endless days on shipboard, with his friends and buddies. Days without civilian responsibilities or obligations, except doing your duty and watching out for your buddies, so you both stayed alive. Life was simple then, and death was a fact that existed in a time of war or peace. It was a story we never understood, until we experienced that type of brotherhood in the Air Force.

 

I was thinking of my Dad and his generation when Kathy and I went to Lakeside Golf Club, on Armed Forces Day, to join in a tribute to their Veterans of World War II. We were guests of Kathy’s father, the doctor, a former naval surgeon and one of the thirty honorees.  It was a fitting tribute for gallant men, and the organizers did a good job. They arranged period music, videos, testimonials, and medals. There were also memorials to deceased club members, who had played significant roles in the war - Bob Hope, John Wayne, and Audie Murphy. There was even a facsimile musical group called the (new) Andrew Sisters, to serenade the vets with songs of the war years. Watching these aging, former naval officers, sailors, infantrymen, and fliers walk up on canes and on the arms of Marine Honor Guardsmen to receive their medals was a powerful moment. This Depression and WWII generation is quickly disappearing, and this country will never see their like again. There is no question in my mind that they are truly the greatest. It has taken me a long time to accept this. I had gotten so used to thinking them the geriatric generation, the white haired old men who blocked the way to promotions and control of the reins of power and decision-making. They were the old fogies who kept harping back to “the good old days” and old, methodical ways of doing things. I had come to believe that they were out of touch and out of date; until I began noticing a curious phenomenon. They actually did make things better in “the old days” than we do today.

 

This fact struck home when our local district recently met with all secondary school principals. The meeting was held at a brand new middle school under construction. The school is set to open in the fall, and it is billed as one of the crowning pieces of a 10 year construction effort in Los Angeles. The school looks beautiful from the outside; colorful, spacious, and modern. The classrooms and offices are equally impressive, with bright lights, gleaming whiteboards, and state of the art electrical and digital hookups. However, a critical eye (and ear) soon reveals that the buildings, rooms, and acoustics are marginal, cheap, and tinny. The buildings lack the character, substance, and design of  pre-war and post-war models that were constructed in the 50’s and 60’s. Those schools were built to last; these new schools are made to be replaced in 25 to 30 years. “Who designed and built these cut-rate knock-offs?” I kept asking myself, as I looked around the new school. I realized that it was my generation.

 

What an amazing group of men and women are quickly disappearing! How did they manage? The historical forces that buffeted them, and the breakthroughs and adjustments they had to make in their lifetime in the areas of science, technology, world politics, values, and religion, would have broken any other group of men and women. How did they do it? They brought so much hope, idealism, and common sense to their families and lives. And they worked, they worked hard. God bless them. More than fighting in a war, the things that this generation inspired, created, or repaired, was what made them great. Their greatest achievements were in the post-war years. They were molded in the Depression, and fired in the war; then they went out and created and produced beautiful and lasting things in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Their only failing was the offspring they brought forth; children who would never match their character, ethics and virtues. Intelligence we had, and education we received, but we never got their values: self-sufficiency, perseverance, pride of work, making things that lasted, and fixing things. They built things to last, but always with a plan of repair. They built for quality, and then became wealthy on their repair and improvement. They were ingenious.

 

So what have we wrought; we, the offspring of this greatest generation? Is the nation stronger, wealthier, and better off than it was after the war, in the 50’s and 60’s? Do we make things better than our parents? Ah, there’s the rub! Our parents created. They made things; they made stuff that worked, stuff that lasted, and stuff that stood the test of time. They were the creative generation that emerged from the rubble and destruction of World War II. What do we make? We make money, we buy things, and then we dispose of them! We buy things and we throw them away when they break or age. We are the expedient generation, looking for the short cuts and the quickest and easiest way to achieve a goal, or to make money. Quality and craftsmanship are things of another age. We had been raised by our parents to believe that we would be bigger, better, stronger, smarter, more educated and more prosperous than they. And we were; but have we squandered the talents our parents were so proud of?

Comments

Reprint on Vet's Day

[el-dorado-58.livejournal.com]

Your blog reminded me of my last trip to Washington D.C. We visited Arlington Nat'l Cemetery and it was a powerful afternoon. Coincidentally to your post, Audie Murphy's resting place is one of the highlighted grave sites. It's in the area near the official Spanish-American War memorial. (Which is an actual fragment of the Maine - I guess once a memorial is in place, there's no amount of historical revisionism that can rub it out).

Anyway, I agree with your assessment over the differences in the generations. Don't feel too bad however, our generation was built for speed, technology and efficiency. The reason so much of our production is disposable is because it's cheaper to replace it than to fix it.

At least our dad's experiences are still part of our memory. If you want to feel despair for the future, watch the teenagers who also were visiting Arlington! They were yapping and carousing so much in our shuttle that a few of us had to shout out, "Dudes, it's a CEMETERY! Shut up!!!" You'd think they'd know when to use their generation's trademark: Silent Texting!

Pre-WWII v. Post WWII

[(Anonymous)]

You are so right about the differences between the persona in all its manifestations of these two generations - the fathers and sons (I'll leave the mothers and daughters to someone more knowledgeable). But it was not just generational. I believe it happened to the same generation who were born on either side of this chasm called WWII.

This is how I witnessed it in my own family. My brother and I were born prior to WWII. Not by much but those few years were enough to absorb the ethos of the time from our parents. Then the war came and my father did not serve because he was too old for the draft and had two children. So it wasn't as though we were denied having a father's presence for several years. Then, within five or six years following the war, another brother and sister were born into the family. Same parents, same upbringing, but it was as though we were from two different worlds. I believe it was either something that emanated from their environment, which was so different from our own in those early years, or, our parents had changed, had been changed by the new world in which they found themselves. It was a world in which no one any longer lived under the shadow of the depression, dust bowl, etc. It was a world where people moved around the country with much greater freedom than ever before and where women had tasted - at least for a short while - independence and the thrill of earning a paycheck. Whatever caused it, we were four children of the same family but two were products of one America and two were victims of a different country. Even the brother who was born before the war, who was a hell-raiser and in trouble till the end of his teen years still carried those "genes" of responsibility and hard work that eventually made themselves known. At any rate, I just wanted to thank you for this blog. It is the first one of yours that I have read and I have already read one other and look forward to enjoying more of them. And finally, thanks for your remarks in an earlier blog about Gracie. I am a friend of hers but the stories of her youth were new to me, although knowing her, not surprising.

Gracie's Friend