The Great Generation

Since returning to the Philadelphia area after an absence of thirty plus years I have been renewing contact with old friends.  Last week I had lunch with Vince K. age 87 or thereabouts. He had been a very young fighter pilot in the Pacific theater in WWII. He flew 105 missions in a P-51 MUSTANG built by North American. His final mission was to have been providing air cover for our troops in the planned invasion of the Japanese homeland island of Kyushu. After Truman dropped the A-bomb and Japan surrendered, the invasion was cancelled and my friend came home, went to college on the G.I. Bill of Rights, raised a family and lived a long and productive life. As a young apprentice I worked along side many veterans of WWII - they rarely talked about it. Hank flew the Hump in Burma in B-25s, Big Mike's cargo ship was torpedoed and Ed was in the Battle of the Bulge only six months out of high school. Tom Brokaw called them the "Greatest Generation" but the guys I met would be embarrassed to use the superlative.
tjs
Next - Gore Vidal