“Watch your character for your character is your destiny.” ~ Winston Churchill
I think it’s safe to say many are concerned with the kind of legacy this generation might leave the next. So many environmental issues of grave importance are being left unattended, leaving the planet teetering on the brink.
Since we can’t find common ground we’re left arguing over the definition of reality. Facts have become fungible and the truth has become a matter of one’s personal opinion.
Where do we go from here? How do we inch our way back from the edge?
I’m writing about this question from mostly an American perspective today, although the stakes are clearly global.
Perhaps we look back to a challenging time 80 years ago when the nation struggled to preserve its way of life. The country was mired in a deep economic depression and war raged in Europe.
Imagine yourself as a kid just out of high school, waking up on the morning of December 7, 1941 to the news…
KABOOM!
Wouldn’t that have just blown your socks off, to know in an instant your whole life was turned upside down? Your future was put on hold and soon you’d be called on to serve in the war that might cost you your life?
It makes me shiver to think about it.
- no school
- no marriage
- no career
Only the thought of war and the all-consuming reality that you’d be asked to sacrifice, sacrifice and sacrifice more, until the war was won…or lost.
This actually happened.
And that generation proved equal to the task. A generation — no brighter, no more religious, no more righteous, no more courageous than now — answered and met this extraordinary challenge with exemplary character and achieved a remarkable victory.
They found common ground and a common cause.
These people aren’t strangers to us or other-worldly superheroes. They are our kindred folk, our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. It was they who won for us the privilege to live as we do. It was they who secured for us our inheritance.
“We now realize as we have never before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take, but we must be willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline, no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective.” Franklin Roosevelt
16 million men and women marched off to war, 38 million more served stateside in war-related industries.
Two years earlier, America’s military preparedness was non-existent. In 1939, the United States Army ranked thirty-ninth in the world. After Pearl Harbor, the president set staggering goals for the nation’s factories: 60,000 aircraft in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943; 120,000 tanks in the same time period and 55,000 anti-aircraft guns. Many of these military assets were given to allied forces.
American industry retooled to serve the war effort. Companies already engaged in defense work expanded. Others, like the automobile industry, were transformed completely. Backyards were turned into victory gardens, the vast home-based volunteer force knitted sweaters for soldiers, rationed staples and offered prayers 24/7 for fighting forces.
We were actually united and willingly sacrificed everything for the sake of the nation.
This generation faces the hard question of whether it will willingly sacrifice for the sake of the future. The answer to which, in no small measure, will determine what kind of world is left to future generations.
Will we find our voice or will it be for our ancestors to shout to us from the grave? Stand now! Join forces! Act!
That generation was different from us in one very defining way. They were in agreement as to:
- the reality they faced
- the enemy at hand
- the outcome they sought
Whether this generation will find common ground on the great issues of our times — saving the planet — is a question yet to be answered. Its legacy has not yet been written.
Just a thought…
Pat
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