uss-edsall:

We must remember the Greatest Generation for their sacrifices and heroism against fascist menaces, but we must remember they’re human beings, too. They made mistakes, just as many, if not more, than the Baby Boomers we millennials love to shit on. The Greatest are now held up by the standard of their generation’s name, but there’s a reason the Baby Boomers grew up in the world they did, there’s a reason there was so much pollution that Ohio rivers caught fire, there’s a reason we had an aggressive foreign policy that led to so many wars and societal shifts in such short time, there’s a reason for quite a lot of things before the Baby Boomers grew old enough to take the mantle of ‘young adult’.

And those answers do not lie in holding up the Greatest Generation as perfect, infallible human beings.

Don’t put them on a pedestal. Remember them, certainly for the amazing things they did, but also for the many other things they took part in. Much of it isn’t pretty, much of it isn’t nice to learn about, but it is all necessary to understand how our modern world was shaped.