A nod to the Greatest Generation

LOS ALAMOS, NM, Nov. 11, 2016—Three days after America made the fateful decision to elect "billionaire" celebrity Donald Trump as its 45th President, we hit the road in an attempt to locate something honest in the midst of the farce that had swept over our nation. Just eight short years after President Barrack Obama had promised "Hope" and "Change," which he then duly delivered in the form of a vast transfer of federal wealth to billionaires and bankers at the expense of working-class Americans, Donald Trump pursed his lips and squinted his beady eyes into the Television cameras and promised to make America great once again. The people bought it hook, line, and sinker, even as the Clinton crowd insisted that the abhorrent yellow-haired Reality-TV star stood no real chance of being elected.

Now, in the aftermath, watery eyed Clinton supporters staggered despondently to and fro—shell-shocked, blind, and numb from the crushing concussion of unexpected defeat—as Trump allies gloated with smug satisfaction over the Electorate's unambiguous confirmation that America as we know it had not changed and offered no hope to the majority of its citizens. Abject despair juxtaposed against a chorus of demonic glee had transformed social media, the airwaves, and the streets of some of our nation's largest cities into a disorienting noisy Hell of sensory overload. It was definitely time to unplug and escape, and the crumbling back roads of Southern New Mexico seemed an appropriate place of refuge. The buzz of our tires on long straight stretches of asphalt was enough to temporarily drown out the irreconcilable din of the raging Right and Left, and within hours of our departure we felt ourselves shaking off some of the horror of the 2016 Election.

In the Good Old Days before Cell Phones

Thank you for being part of The Greatest Generation, Dad.

In an era of endless instantaneous complaining, we sometimes forget that not long ago Americans made great sacrifices on behalf of their nation. This generation of people, dubbed by one prominent former Newsman and historian as "The Greatest Generation," looked outside of themselves toward the possibility of a Greater Good. These people built modern infrastructure, and made discoveries that would lead to the Space Age, plastics, high-speed computers, modern warfare, and the cell phone. Some became rich in the process. Others helped defend America and the rest of the world from tyranny and fascism on the battlefields of Europe, Africa, and Asia.

My father was one of the latter. He marched through Europe, killing Nazis and liberating Jews from the death camps that had been erected by their captors. He told me once that he had slowly slid a bayonet into the eye of an arrogant Nazi SS officer who would not provide answers to questions after being captured. He told me other stories about combat that made that episode seem tame by comparison. Clearly his experiences in World War II had left deep scars upon his psyche, but he didn't wear those scars on his sleeve and he preferred not to talk about the war. I was able to coax stories out of him only once. He told me his tales on two conditions: That I sit and listen to them until he was finished telling them; and that I never again ask him about the war afterward. A long, difficult day ensued, but in the end I felt I had a much greater understanding of my father, and certainly I had a lot more respect for him. 

Upon his return to the United States after the war, he took up a fight against ignorance, serving as a science teacher for junior high school students. He never asked for credit for serving his nation, and none was ever given to him. He died poor but happy just four days after his 79th birthday. His largely anonymous passing occurred in a nondescript rural community that had been carved into the unforgiving hardscrabble landscape of southeastern New Mexico. Few were present for his burial; no one referred to him as a hero. Though my father was not a gentle or necessarily refined person, he deplored racism and injustice. The war had shown him the price of those things firsthand. He revered self-reliance, ingenuity, and ethics. The war had shown him—more than any scripture or sermon—that Evil did exist; the fair-haired, well-heeled SS officers he encountered confirmed that the Devil is not always ugly. He hated bullies and he loved the truth, even if the unvarnished recitation of it caused discomfort to those who would try to twist it to their own advantage.

Inconvenient Truth

I had not visited my father's grave since he was buried 13 years ago. As I knelt before his headstone on this Veteran's Day, I realized that I had never thanked him for his national service and for the role he had played in helping me become an honorable, successful member of American society. I was surprised by the flood of tears that these thoughts unleashed in me, and I was slightly embarrassed to find myself as a grown man weeping before my father's ghost in a deserted cemetery in Lovington, NM. For here I was, standing in front of a legend who spent the tail end of his teenage years and the beginning of his adulthood slogging through blood and guts among strangers in a foreign land. Unlike members of today's generation, my father had been awarded no "Safe Space" to spare him from the daily "Trigger Events" he witnessed on the battlefield; he voiced no disappointment or resentment that his rations did not include a gluten-free option; he harbored no grudge that the vast majority of his dead comrades did not receive a "participation medal" for their sacrifice; and the gender or sexual preferences of his Brothers-in-Arms were much less a topic of conversation than the trueness of their aim or their ability to field strip and clean a malfunctioning rifle while being fired upon by the enemy.

Unlike my father, I am fat and soft and have had the luxury of living a life in which I've never had to go off to battle to fight for our current Way of Life. My father had wanted it that way. He told me during that very long day of unpleasant storytelling that he had fought with the hope that I or my own children would never have to do what he did. The idea of a nation being led by a Trump or a Clinton is far less important than the idea of having a nation worth fighting for in the first place. While many rage on Social Media or in the streets between mealtimes protesting that their particular brand did or did not win the popular vote on November 8, 2016, corporate fascists continue to invade every corner of our Democracy, ensuring that the wishes of the tiniest minority of the Wealthiest Americans trumps the Will of the People. As my father taught me long ago, Evil really does exist, and I guess if he were still alive today, he'd be telling me that the guy with the yellow hair or the woman with the pantsuit are not the ones we should be fighting against.

Thank you for your service, Dad.