Posted by
flagwaver on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 1:13:20 PM
When did it all go so wrong for us? When did we become a nation that is so selfish that we cannot even see that there are things that are greater than our own selfish wants and desires? Where have all the patriots gone?
There was a time that public figures in America were unabashedly patriotic, proud of their American identity, and willing to do whatever it took to demonstrate their patriotism. In stark contrast to today’s popular culture figures, the biggest stars of previous times never thought to be anything other than patriotic. It was expected of them to be patriots, to support the government, and to love their nation.
Take the story of Carole Lombard, for instance. Carole Lombard was an actress of some renown in the “Golden Age” of Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s, a major star, and the wife of Clark Gable. Ms. Lombard was tragically killed in a plane crash in 1942 on her way back home to Los Angeles after helping to raise over a million dollars selling war bonds. It was not something that her publicists told her to do, or her studio pressured her to do for good publicity but something that she chose to do…because she felt she was doing the right thing to serve her country. After her death, her husband joined the Army and flew combat missions in Europe to honor her memory…and to help protect his nation. Can you imagine any star of today dropping his career plans to defend America from her enemies?
Or take the example of Ted Williams, one of the greatest baseball players of all time. In his career “Teddy Ballgame” was the last man to hit .400 in a season, and hit a homerun in his last major league at bat, all of which would fit nicely in a movie script. But what is more amazing is that in the prime years of his career, Ted Williams gave up his baseball career to serve his nation as a pilot in World War 2! Can any of us imagining Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, or even Curt Schilling giving up his career to fight a war? Yet this man did just that, without reservation simply because it was right.
It is a sad state of affairs that so few of us today can imagine any “famous” person that would be willing to make this type of sacrifice in the service of our nation, Pat Tillman notwithstanding. And what is even sadder is the idea that so many of our popular culture figures have that real patriotism somehow consists of publicly ridiculing our President in a time of war, characterizing our military as ignorant dupes at best, and bloodthirsty murderers at worst.
How did the “Greatest Generation” give birth to what can only be called the “Selfish Generation?” I suppose it is up to us now to rediscover those attributes that made that generation great and impart them to our children, so that we do not drown as a nation in our own selfishness.