Have you heard about the greatest generation? This is the generation which was born around the early part of the 20th century and fought in the Second World War. These are the people who fought because it was the right thing to do and went on after the war to build one of the most prosperous societies known to mankind. The next big war, Vietnam War, produced what I would call as the bewildered generation. Between drugs, peace, liberalism, a whole generation was lost to society but just when life was settling down, 9/11 happened. It is too early to say but between 9/11, Afghanistan, the Bush Administration and Iraq, a new generation is forming which will define America for the next thirty years at the least. I call it the angry generation.

Surprised? Well, yes, so was I when I read the book We were One by Patrick K O'Donnell (ISBN-10: 0306815737). This is a fascinating book about the Marines of the 1st Platoon, Lima Company, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment and its operations in Fallujah primarily over a period of few weeks in November / December 2004. The book ends with the following sentences which I am taking the liberty to quote. "The individuals I met in Iraq, especially in the Marines of 1st Platoon, showed me clearly that they truly do constitute the next Greatest Generation. Make no mistake about it; America's best is in Iraq. After surviving the battle, I made an oath, a blood oath, that I would tell their story". Quite an emphatic statement, no?

But I am moving too far ahead as usual.

My first introduction to the Greatest Generation was predictably via a book. It was a fiction book, by Leon Uris, called Battle Cry. This was the story of a bunch of volunteer Marines, who had enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and fought across a variety of islands in the Pacific. The book is also about their loves and hates, their lives and deaths. It is a brilliant book and I have read and re-read that book a zillion times. Then I read about the economics, history, sociology, science, education etc. of post war America and then I slowly understood what the term "Greatest Generation" meant. It is difficult to explain, perhaps more of a term to be felt. These marines were in the Marine Corps for years on end and therefore formed a bond between themselves, inside the Corps and most importantly, with society that was crucial to them being great.

If somebody has to explain it, then it will never work, but perhaps one has to empathise to feel what this term means. Walk around one of the great American cities and observe the tall confident buildings, travel the highways and witness those ribbons of concrete wrapping the country, observe the factories and witness the bodies at work, walk into a campus and see the minds at play. All these were due to the Greatest Generation. This is a broad generalisation, but I do hope you understand what I mean. War, in this case, brought the country together and gave rise to the Greatest Generation.

But the Vietnam War tore a hole in the fabric of American society. Between the late 1960's to 1970's, cold war, hippie culture, drugs, the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon and the 1973 oil shock, the country seemed to emerge a bit confused and a bit bewildered. The American Army was in literal shock, society was a bit disorientated as well, and that is why I call the generation which lived through and participated in the Vietnam War as the bewildered generation. Individuality was celebrated, societal thinking was out, under-classes started to develop, corruption flourished, the legal system started to jam slightly, the political class started to stink a bit more, and the economy was creaking under the oil shock. The generation did not know what to do because the old certainties had gone away, the economic levers did not work, unemployment had risen, insecurity was high, politics was dirty, society as a construct was weakening, divorce rates were rising and so on and so forth. People were bewildered, they did not know what to do or how to react. That's why I (again, a very broad generalisation here) call them as the bewildered generation.

It took the late 80's and 90's to get going again.

-All this to be taken with a grain of salt!