Letters From Grandpa #486

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 486

Dearest grandchild,

Tom Brokaw is a former television journalist who is best known for anchoring the NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. Brokaw has written a number of books, and today’s letter will be about his book The Greatest Generation (1998). In this book he states: “Every generation has its share of men who fully live the art of manliness. But there may have never been a generation when the ratio of honorable men to slackers was higher than the one born between 1914 and 1929. These were men who grew up during the Great Depression. They were the men who went off the fight the Big One.”

Brokaw wrote from personal experience. His mother worked at the post office and tells the story of Gordon Larsen coming in one day complaining about teen-agers doing damage on Halloween night. She came to their defense and said: “Oh Gordon, what were you doing when you were 17?” Gordon looked her in the eye and said: “I was landing at Guadalcanal.” Brokaw saw a big difference between teen-agers courageously facing death in a war, and modern teen-agers seeking a “safe place” because someone triggered them with the wrong pronoun.

Here are 7 lessons Brokaw gleaned from the men who were part of The Greatest Generation.

• 1 – Take Personal Responsibility for your life. Brokaw tells of a man named Wesley Ko. Soon after the war he started a printing business. After 35 years of hard work he decided to relocate his business and took out a $1.3 million loan. The transition did not go well and after only one year he was forced to go out of business. At the age of 70, with no Social Security, he took another job to pay back his million dollar loan. He said: “I just didn’t feel comfortable declaring bankruptcy.”
• 2 – Be frugal. A popular motto of that generation was: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” That generation did not purchase Corvettes to soothe their mid-life crisis, or buy McMansions to make them feel successful. Brokaw’s own father declined to buy him a new lawn mower from Sears and Roebuck, but went instead to his workshop and made a mower for Tom using an old washing machine motor.
• 3 – Be humble. “Typical of the Greatest Generation is the story of a son or daughter who finds a war medal stashed in the attic after their father passes, he having never told them about it. Even if their exploits had been brave and heroic, The Greatest Generation rarely talked about the war. Both because of the difficulty in remembering such carnage, but also from the sense that they had simply been fulfilling their duty, and thus had no reason to brag.”
• 4 – Love loyalty. The men of The Greatest Generation took their marriage vows seriously. Brokaw wrote: “It was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option. I can’t remember one of my parent’s friends who was divorced. In the communities where we lived it was treated as a minor scandal.”
• 5 – Work hard. Those men came home from the war had learned to focus on an objective and not to make excuses. They didn’t fall into the modern fashion of “finding a passion” in search of happiness. They found fulfillment in any job that enabled them to provide for their family. They didn’t fall in to the current trap of wanting to start out with all of the amenities that grandpa had when he quit.
• 6 – Embrace challenge. “The Greatest Generation wasn’t the greatest ‘despite’ the challenges they faced, but ‘because’ of them.” They knew by experience that life was filled with both bitter and sweet and triumphed over obstacles by accepting challenges for the sheer joy of the journey.
• 7 – Don’t make life so complicated. The Greatest Generation approached life with level heads and common sense. They were not obsessed with the latest diet or fashion trend, but simply found a gal, got married, and lived happily ever after. They were more interested in function than fashion. Joe Foss was a decorated pilot in W.W. II. When he became the governor of South Dakota he was asked if he missed his younger days. He replied: “Oh no. I’m not the guy who missed anything from anywhere. I’ve always been the guy who gets up and goes.” Brokaw added: “Instead of spending your time navel gazing your life away, just get up and go.”

The prophet Jeremiah faced a generation that failed to learn from the faith of their fathers. 13 times he accused them of backsliding. 53 times he accused them of sin and transgression. 47 times he urged them to return to the Lord. 14 times he warned them of being scattered and 51 times he warned them that they were going to be taken captive to Babylon. He pleaded with them: “This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ . . . we will not listen.” (Jeremiah 6:16-18) When his beloved city of Jerusalem was reduced to ashes and wet with the blood of his wayward brethren, he wailed: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?” (Lamentations 1:12)

Perhaps it is time for us to also stand at the crossroads, ask for the ancient paths, and also ask where is the good way? And then walk in it.

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce