20 year olds Then vs. Now

[turnandshoot4]

Today 20 year olds are serving longer tours than any other generation before them.

 

[gunowner930]

Today 20 year olds are serving longer tours than any other generation before them.

This^ These 20 year olds are also leading men into combat before they are even old enough to legally drink. The 1930s and 40s also give the country 12+ years of FDR the dictator.

 

[turnandshoot4]

This generation has the decency to support the troops while not supporting the war.

 

[ghunter]

The other marchers couldn't get him to leave his mother's basement.

Thanks for the visual, Rambone!

 

[CarmelHP]

I wouldn't be too hard on the recently entering adulthood generation. In the '40's millions went to war, but there was also the small subculture who were young communist league and and socialist workers' party members as well as that being the generation that gave us Roosevelt and wailed for handouts as loud as anyone has. In the '60's, millions went to war and tens of thousands became professional protestors and carried NVA flags. In the most recent generation, the number that have gone off to combat, all volunteers, dwarfed the number of the few thousand filthy useful idiots that make up the occupy movement. Cut this recent generation some slack, all in all, I've been very proud of them.

 

[Garb]

I wouldn't be too hard on the recently entering adulthood generation. In the '40's millions went to war, but there was also the small subculture who were young communist league and and socialist workers' party members as well as that being the generation that gave us Roosevelt and wailed for handouts as loud as anyone has. In the '60's, millions went to war and tens of thousands became professional protestors and carried NVA flags. In the most recent generation, the number that have gone off to combat, all volunteers, dwarfed the number of the few thousand filthy useful idiots that make up the occupy movement. Cut this recent generation some slack, all in all, I've been very proud of them.

This. I'm twenty two, and I work full time and go to school part time. I don't take a single government handout. Those fools in that picture don't represent me or most of the 20 year olds I know.

 

[rambone]

I feel bad for the youngest generation. Their life will be filled with turmoil and strife, war and government oppression. They'll never know what the good old days were like. They'll work their whole lives to pay for someone else's retirement while being left holding the bag when they get to retire, at 85 years old. The previous generation should be ashamed.

 

[ATM]

Im sure if China attacked us, the pic on the right would be similar to the pic on the left. And OWS wouldnt be happening

I can make some calls.

 

[GBuck]

I mean, I see what you're trying to say here, however, the 20 somethings of this generation are not all bad. You're trying to take the OWS kids and lump those guys, which are probably not even 1% of the 20 somethings in this country and make everyone out to be bad. The 40s had bad kids, the fifties, sixties and so on did too. In many of the previous generations, especially the 60-70s you were either for the troops and lumped into being a warmonger or you were against the war and spit on troops. Now days, the people are VOLUNTEERING to go to war at a rate never before seen. We haven't even come close to having a draft. Troops are highly regarded by most 20 somethings whether they support the war(s) or not.

I, due to med reasons, was not allowed to join the Army, but, I go to work every day, I pay my taxes, and I stay out of trouble. I do all of this while supporting our troops and being charitable to their and others relief. I do not think it is in any way accurate or fair to people of my generation to lump US with the OWS movement.


Please note, there are plenty of people over the age of 29 that are joining the OWS movement.

Signed,
The guy paying into social security so others can have "retirement" they think they deserve, that I will never see a red cent of.

 

[Expat]

Today 20 year olds are serving longer tours than any other generation before them.

I didn't realize the guys in WW 2 had tours. The only thing I could find by Googling was that they were in the field for the duration plus 6 months.

 

[maxmayhem]

yeah

they were either shipped home or shipped home in a box...it was a different conflict then and more desperate than these conflicts appear to be--but that is debatable as well

I didn't realize the guys in WW 2 had tours. The only thing I could find by Googling was that they were in the field for the duration plus 6 months.

 

[UncleMike]

I didn't realize the guys in WW 2 had tours. The only thing I could find by Googling was that they were in the field for the duration plus 6 months.

Yup!!
The only ticket home was a disabling injury/mental disability/extreme hardship/winning the Medal Of Honor/or some other politically expedient situation.
I've known men who served from before Pearl Harbor to a year after the Japanese surrender.
Also...
If you got killed, you were almost always planted near where you died.
No "Take Home Bags" back then.

 

[CarmelHP]

I didn't realize the guys in WW 2 had tours. The only thing I could find by Googling was that they were in the field for the duration plus 6 months.

It depended, there was a point system. My father was in Europe from March 1942 to March 1945, and had been in the Army since 1933, and my parents had 1 child by then. He received a Purple Heart after non-disabling wounds he received in a mortar barrage in February 1945, and had been through 3 campaigns: Normandy offiensive, Metz offensive, and Ardennes counter-offensive. He was able to return home on points he had accumulated. He wasn't released from Ready Reserve until 1950.

 

[Expat]

None of my family must have gotten any points which wouldn't surprise me

I know that none of them ever came home during the war that I had ever heard of.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

Today 20 year olds are serving longer tours than any other generation before them.

I didn't realize the guys in WW 2 had tours. The only thing I could find by Googling was that they were in the field for the duration plus 6 months.

Today's military rotational deployment system is a construct designed to minimize the effects of limited warfare on the individual soldier while maximizing their overall effectiveness by deploying entire units who have trained together, which, IMO, is a better system than was used in either WWI/II/Korea or Vietnam. It doesn't reflect either particular endurance or particular weakness on any generation's young soldiers, it merely reflects certain realities of military service that have changed in the 60+ years since WWII.

I will say that it seems to me to be a tough thing for active duty soldiers with families to have to leave them multiple times (when I was hanging out at 10th Mtn Div HQ in 2006 - several folks I encountered were on their 4th combat rotation). It helps that the troops have largely been supported by those of us who remember what it was like for servicemembers in uniform during the later stages of the Vietnam war and the majority of the two generations that have succeeded us.

 

[dross]

Don't forget, that crap they listen to isn't music. It's just noise. Also, they have no respect for their elders. Also, they're really soft. Back in the sixties and seventies, I had to walk to school, uphill both ways in the snow.

And the drugs these days. We didn't have all these fru fru designer drugs they have now, no sir. It was plain ol' columbian or acid, or we just didn't get high.

With such a generation of wimps, I'm surprised they can soldier at all. Probably just relying on all that technology. Back when I was in the Army, it was tough, I'm tellin' ya'.

And another thing, we paid our Social Security taxes for our parents Grandparents to retire offa' without all this complaining. This younger generation is all irritated they're going to pay into a system so their elders who have way more wealth than they do can enjoy their twenty years of retirement, a system that their elders bankrupted and that they'll never see a dime of.

Sissy butt, noise listening, two war fighting, better parenting, less drug using, more personal savings youth of today. What are we gonna do with 'em?

 

[88GT]

I'm continually amused by these threads. Has there ever been a generation that didn't view the generations younger than theirs as punks?

Probably. Prior to the advent of industrialization, the division between generations was less influential in society than the division between families.

While I get your point, agree or disagree with the current wars (I tend to disagree) there is an all-volunteer force, many of whom are 20 year olds, giving everything.

Let us not forget that the fools on the left (the right side of your picture) are still only a subset of the generation.

Arguably though, they make up a much larger percentage of the total than previous generations. How many of our current crop would turn to suicide rather than be denied enlistment?

I feel bad for the youngest generation. Their life will be filled with turmoil and strife, war and government oppression. They'll never know what the good old days were like. They'll work their whole lives to pay for someone else's retirement while being left holding the bag when they get to retire, at 85 years old. The previous generation should be ashamed.

You're talking about everybody that's earned a wage since the advent of income payroll taxes.