Pull your head out of your ass you spoiled, entitled bunch of pansies!
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Shared from C.J. Aragon

I talked to a man today.

I talked with a man today, an 80+ year old man.  I asked him if there was anything I can get him while this Coronavirus scare was gripping America.

He simply smiled, looked away and said:

"Let me tell you what I need!  I need to believe, at some point, this country my generation fought for... I need to believe this nation we handed safely to our children and their children...

I need to know this generation will quit being a bunch of sissies...that they respect what they've been given...that they've earned what others sacrificed for."

I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or if it was going anywhere at all.  So, I sat there, quietly observing.

"You know, I was a little boy during WWII.  Those were scary days.   We didn't know if we were going to be speaking English, German or Japanese at the end of the war.  There was no certainty, no guarantees like Americans enjoy today.

And no home went without sacrifice or loss.  Every house, up and down every street, had someone in harm's way.  Maybe their Daddy was a soldier, maybe their son was a sailor, maybe it was an uncle.  Sometimes it was the whole damn family...fathers, sons, uncles...

Having someone, you love, sent off to war...it wasn't less frightening than it is today.  It was scary as Hell.  If anything, it was more frightening.  We didn't have battle front news.  We didn't have email or cellphones.  You sent them away and you hoped...you prayed.  You may not hear from them for months, if ever.  Sometimes a mother was getting her son's letters the same day Dad was comforting her over their child's death.

And we sacrificed.  You couldn't buy things.  Everything was rationed.  You were only allowed so much milk per month, only so much bread, toilet paper.  EVERYTHING was restricted for the war effort.  And what you weren't using, what you didn't need, things you threw away, they were saved and sorted for the war effort.  My generation was the original recycling movement in America.

And we had viruses back then...serious viruses.  Things like polio, measles, and such.  It was nothing to walk to school and pass a house or two that was quarantined.  We didn't shut down our schools.  We didn't shut down our cities.  We carried on, without masks, without hand sanitizer.  And do you know what?  We persevered.  We overcame.  We didn't attack our President, we came together.  We rallied around the flag for the war.  Thick or thin, we were in it to win.  And we would lose more boys in an hour of combat than we lose in entire wars today."

He slowly looked away again.  Maybe I saw a small tear in the corner of his eye.  Then he continued:

"Today's kids don't know sacrifice. They think a sacrifice is not having coverage on their phone while they freely drive across the country.  Today's kids are selfish and spoiled.  In my generation, we looked out for our elders.  We helped out with single moms who's husbands were either at war or dead from war.  Today's kids rush the store, buying everything they can...no concern for anyone but themselves.  It's shameful the way Americans behave these days.  None of them deserve the sacrifices their granddads made.

So, no I don't need anything.  I appreciate your offer but, I know I've been through worse things than this virus.  But maybe I should be asking you, what can I do to help you?  Do you have enough pop to get through this, enough steak?  Will you be able to survive with 113 channels on your tv?"

I smiled, fighting back a tear of my own...now humbled by a man in his 80's.  All I could do was thank him for the history lesson, leave my number for emergency and leave with my ego firmly tucked in my rear.

I talked to a man today.  A real man.  An American man from an era long gone and forgotten.  We will never understand the sacrifices.  We will never fully earn their sacrifices.  But we should work harder to learn about them..learn from them...to respect them.

I saw this and it was to good not to share

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My reply:

Please refrain from sharing stories like this with me. Comparing a global pandemic to WWII is apples and oranges in the most dangerous way. The global population is 3.5x more than it was in the great depression. It wasn't hubris or cell phones or too many TV channels that exacerbated this. Nobody started this, there are no sides. COVID-19 is blind to religion or nationality. This isn't something you can overcome by sheer force of will and a can-do attitude. And do you know what happened before there was a global concerted effort to control and eliminate diseases like polio and measles? There were massive epidemics of both, killing tens of thousands of people at a time, lives that would have likely been saved if hand-washing and masks were more ubiquitous, especially in hospitals. And it wasn't the President or the coming together of the American people that solved it, it was a global effort to develop and disseminate a vaccine and install a system of vaccination from birth that would prevent any further loss of life in the future.

But the most offensive part of that story is the assumption that "today's kids" are any less deserving of quality of life because we "don't know sacrifice". To make broad, sweeping generalizations about a generation, calling them "selfish" and "spoiled" is as pointless as it is insulting. Ihave my grandfather's medals from WWII displayed proudly on the first wall you see when you walk into my apartment. I've lost friends to war, close family to suicide, and I grew up in a community over an hour from civilization because that's the only housing we could afford. We grew our own food, I had 4 channels on a clear night, and I earned every cent of my first car picking rocks and potato beetles. I busted my ass to get into university and graduate school, and after all that effort, all those years of soul-crushing double shifts, all-nighters, nerve-wracking exams, do you know what I have to show for it? Massive debt, a dismal social life, and Lyme disease.

Your "too good not to share" story is inflammatory, bigoted, and only serves to diminish your crediblity and reputation among "us kids". If you find this reply offensive, then we'll have to agree to disagree, but understand that this drivel is unwelcome here.