There They Go. And Here We Are.

You looked at them in National Geographic this month. You wonder how they've made it that long.

And they still matter, in a way. They're the World War II generation. Some photos of them were published in the magazine this month--a survivor of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg); a survivor of the death camps in Europe; someone who hit the beach at Normandy. And others.

Remember, they got through the '30s, too: The depression and long lines for bread and jobs. They had to make sacrifices and learn, again and again, that sharing matters and selfishness is the way to oblivion. My mom did it without a dad, and had two younger siblings. It cost her a chance for college, at least at the time. She's still with us, about two months from her 96th birthday.

That they still go on remains a reminder of their toughness, which many of us can't get within half the galaxy of equalling. I don't know what the hell I would have done.

Then they made damn sure their kids wouldn't have to go through it. So many of them went to college on their parents' backs and pocketbooks (like me). They gave up the route to appreciation so the country wouldn't have to go through such hardship again.

You wonder: How did they do that? Could we have done that? Or is it that they did what they had to do in circumstances we here couldn't imagine--but might be about to experience?

It worked for a long time. We gained tremendous prosperity. But now the virus has hit and we scratch at each other. Wait, though: It's about to get worse.

The virus is coming back. The vaccine won't get here in time. Supply lines are bound to get short or non-existent. We're going to have to either share like we've never shared before, or fight each other over scarcity. The test looms.

The person elected as our leader, which he isn't and doesn't want to be, won't care. He doesn't care now, to be sure. All he wants is to guppy enough followers to enjoy the high life of the White House for another four years, building up his personal wealth at our expense. He'll be treated like royalty, which he's doing his best to mimic. He'll complain about some hardship or another in order to gain empathy and victimitis, which he might be the best at.

We had a president with a real hardship to overcome: FDR and his polio. He didn't do everything right, but he was a good example of a good example. Americans saw him standing there, standing at all, and figured that they could do something with two good legs.

There was racism, and it was deep and systemic, too. Jim Crow was well underway. But veterans of all colors came back from the war and saw the injustice and hypocrisy. My dad did. He stood up for four black stewards (they were often cast in that role), who manned the machine guns (where enemy planes would aim first) on deck during attacks on that destroyer escort. The ship's commander felt he had to exclude them from the decommissioning party in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1946, in order to make it happen at all; the hall's management had insisted. Dad found out and got in his face, all 20 years old of him, and told him off. "They put it on the line like everybody else," he said, though he used a few other choice words to his commander that sailors are used to.

When I learned that, it was inspirational. It was a major reason I moved within the NEA to a very high level. Human and civil rights were plenty to stand up for. They still are today. They will be tomorrow.

They saved the world, not once but twice: Not only in the short run, but in the long run. They saved it from fascists in the '40s, then pivoted for the long war against communism. Those results were mixed, but it could have been much, much worse. The year Dad retired, 1991, is the year the Soviet Union collapsed.

It spilled over into my generation, where results weren't so clear-cut, commitment not so complete. We don't get involved in the wars now, we just watch them. We're still trying that strategy but we can't expect success if we fight wars the public hasn't really committed to. We hold off the bad guys without beating them so we linger endlessly, dangling in overreach. The internal rot of that is only now starting to reveal itself.

And here we still sit, with Black Lives Matter, with dead black people who shouldn't have died. But the street marchers are young now, and energetic, and devoted. I hope they understand the long struggle ahead. But they carry the legacy of the World War II generation with them.

Dad, who was the youngest member of his ship, is still amongst us. Lord knows how long he has, too, moving in toward 94. But he has a son who continued down his path, and a grandson in the National Guard.

There are far fewer of them now. If you happen to see one or know one, whether they actually wore a uniform or not, thank them for doing their best to make the country a good place, a place worth building, a place millions still wish to call home, however desperately they try to make it here.

I happen to think we, the ones of my generation, bloated with middle class comfort, blew our chances to make it even better (more on that elsewhere) by using power, not influence, the surer guide of behavior. But we still have a slot here and there, a little crease, to leave the next generation with something to grasp. Whether it happens or not will still be a matter of attitude and action. This November may be our last chance to overcome cynicism and nihilism, the destroyers of civilization, the denyers of what our forebears promised.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark