Not Their Father's Generation -- Thank God!

In his latest Weekly Standard article, Dean Barnett brings us a hopeful picture of the 9/11 Generation.

In the 1960s, history called the Baby Boomers. They didn't answer the phone.

Confronted with a generation-defining conflict, the cold war, the Boomers--those, at any rate, who came to be emblematic of their generation--took the opposite path from their parents during World War II. Sadly, the excesses of Woodstock became the face of the Boomers' response to their moment of challenge. War protests where agitated youths derided American soldiers as baby-killers added no luster to their image.

Few of the leading lights of that generation joined the military. Most calculated how they could avoid military service, and their attitude rippled through the rest of the century. In the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, military service didn't occur to most young people as an option, let alone a duty.

But now, once again, history is calling. Fortunately, the present generation appears more reminiscent of their grandparents than their parents.

{...}

It is surely a measure of how far we've come as a society from the dark days of the 1960s that things like military service and duty and sacrifice are now celebrated. Just because Washington and Hollywood haven't noticed this generational shift doesn't mean it hasn't occurred. It has, and it's seismic.

I'll leave it up to you to go and read the amazing stories represented by that ellipse. Suffice it to say, the Lefty Boomers are still not answering the call, as witnessed by our Congress tripping all over itself trying to cause these brave young men and women to come home mired in a state of insufferable defeatism. That's really supporting the troops, oh ya betcha!

[Cross posted at Okie on the Lam]