my dad was a real war hero
Marina’s father was a WWII hero, a real one, and because she was raised, like all the Boomers, in awe of the Golden Generation war heroes she has spent her entire life so far, 60 years, believing there was something magical about everyone born in the 1920s.“Mythical yes, but magical no,” says Marina, “and it took a spit in the face from a young upstart accusing my generation of hogging jobs and houses to dispel the myth that the Golden Generation was a heroic one.”
“Most sat out the war at desk jobs and they fraudulently promoted the heroic myths through endless war films and veteran’s marches to glorify themselves and promote their interests at the expense of everyone else born before or after them,” says Marina, “and they blatantly used my generation, the Boomers, as scapegoats for the ills that they, not we, caused.”
“My generation grew up with the atomic bomb fallout, the Cold War, the Korean War and was drafted like sacrificial lambs for the horrific Vietnam War in the 1970s – and we’ve experienced unemployment and financial pressures, too, which is why we promoted zero population growth and had one or two kids – and we were merely impotent puppets who demonstrated on the streets and rocked to anti-war songs while the oldies raked in the money and sent us to war.”
“The Golden Generation spun a myth about themselves that more and more of us are realizing was a cunning ploy to elevate themselves at our expense,” says Marina. “Sure, they lost many of their generation in WWII, but this resulted in an incredible lack of competition after the war in which many inept and untalented people were able to rise to positions of power and influence in all levels of society – the professions, government, education and the corporate world – and once in those positions they held on to them, refusing to budge, citing their seniority and war service as entitling them.”
“My generation never once thought of spitting in the face of an older person for hogging a job or a house or any service,” says Marina. “Three cheers for a young Gen-Yer for showing me that I’ve spent 60 years of my life worshipping frauds!”
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