In his recent remarks reprinted in your newspaper, American Legion Post #58 Commander John Schwab LtCdr, USN ret., referred to Dec. 7, 1941 as being the genesis of the “greatest generation” of Americans. Well, having served for a time on the same submarine as an enlisted man under John’s supervision, I can say that he was pretty “great” as well!

But contrast that earlier generation’s “greatness” with today’s. That earlier generation, sorely provoked, defeated both Japan and Germany in three-and-a-half years. Today’s generation has yet to finish the prosecution of a US Army major, Nidal Hasan, who seven years ago murdered 13 people and wounded more than 30 others at Ft. Hood, Texas. Although he has repeatedly confessed his guilt, despite his sentence of execution, he is still in prison on “appeals” not of his own instigation.

That’s a pretty sorry contrast. It tells a story of a generation once capable of “taking care of business” and one which later became ethically compromised, incapable of acting in its own best interests in service to a false sense of “nobility” and mere appearances.