Reflections of a Baby Boomer

 

The “Greatest Generation” in Retrospect

By Steven P. Marini

 

When Tom Brokaw’s book called The Greatest Generation came out, I thought the title sounded ridiculous. I still do.

For one thing, I hate the notion that generations are being labeled. I am called a “baby boomer” because I was born in 1946. Where does that leave my three older siblings, born in 1940, 1942 and 1945? Aren’t we all in the same generation from our parents?

I also hate the idea of comparing generations. Is it a competition? We have no say into which generation we are born. Can we ask to be traded? Does every member of a labeled generation think, act, and feel the same about everything?

I think not.

Over the recent Memorial Day Weekend, I watched a documentary entitled Vietnam in HD. It was about the story of the Vietnam War as seen through film shot by soldiers and journalists. Much of the film was archived footage. Soldiers of the war were shown in the old film, and they were interviewed in current time, as well.

One man interviewed was Joe Galloway, a journalist. He was a twenty-three-year-old writer for the United Press in 1964. As the war was heating up at that time, he knew he had to go cover it. He begged his superiors to send him. Joe didn’t want to use the “box score” style of writing. He wanted to write like Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent from World War Two. That meant being imbedded where there was actual fighting, getting to know the soldiers by name, learning about them. He made it personal.

At that time, the U.S. developed a tactic called insertion fighting. There were no classical lines of battle in this war. Soldiers were transported by helicopter and “inserted” into the fighting. It wasn’t about winning and occupying territory. It was about killing the enemy. On one such excursion, Joe Galloway went with them.

They were trying to insert over four hundred troops but that took days to land helicopters in a small landing area with six to eight men on board. The U.S. troops thought they had the superior numbers but later learned by interrogating a prisoner that the Vietnamese had enough fighters hiding in the near-bye mountains to give them an eight-to-one advantage.

Broken Arrow was the code word that Joe Galloway heard being sent over radio. It was the call to divert every fighter plane and bomber in the area to this fight. Napalm bombs were dropped and some of them resulted in fires hitting the Americans. Joe was ordered to grab a man’s feet to help carry him to the collection of wounded. As he did so, the fabric of the man’s boots and his burnt flesh peeled away, and Joe tells of feeling the man’s ankle bones in his hands. He shed tears as he told the story.

Was Joe Galloway’s courage and dedication any less than that of his counter parts in WWII?

I think not.

What about the soldiers in Vietnam? By January of 1967, there were nearly four-hundred thousand troops in Vietnam. About one-third were volunteers. Was their bravery any less of the men in 1944?

I think not.

Another man who comes to mind when I think of the Vietnam War. He is Frank Scotton. a civilian, like Joe Galloway. After college, he began working in the U.S. Foreign Service. At the age of twenty-four he was sent to Vietnam by the United States Information Service. It was 1962. He learned as much as possible about the people, the language, and the culture of Vietnam. His job was to help organize and train the South Vietnamese in their fight against the Vietnamese Communists. As we later learned, these people were known as “advisors.”

But Frank Scotton did not have a white-collar job. In 1964 I was surprised to see an article about him in the Boston Globe which described him and his activities in Asia. You see, I knew Frank Scotton. He was about eight years older than me, and his family lived about a block away from my family in the Boston suburb of Needham. The article said that he wore military fatigues and carried a rifle, which he occasionally had to use.

I discovered recently that he authored a book about the war, based on his knowledge and experience. The book is a text for students preparing for work in the field of National Security. From it, entitled Uphill Battle, I learned that  from 1962 to 1975, he spent part of every year in Viet Nam.

One reviewer of the book said he was the Lawrence of Arabia in Viet Nam. Another called him a legend. According to the Globe article, the Communists put a price on his head. Was Frank Scotton’s courage and dedication to duty any less than the soldiers who fought and died in WWII, including his own father?

I think not.

Also of note is a woman who studied for a master’s degree in International Affairs. She planned to work in the State Department. But the Iraq War changed her career path. She went into the Army where she became a fighter helicopter pilot. On one mission, an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) burst through her windshield, landed on her lap, and then exploded. Her legs were blown off and she suffered extensive internal injuries, but somehow, she survived, thanks in part to her co-pilot. To this day she suffers from occasional phantom pain.

Tammy Duckworth rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel and in 2017 she became a United States Senator from Illinois. Was her bravery and continued service to her country any less than the fighters of WWII.

I think you know my answer to that.