re: #180 windsagio

Why are they any better than the people that served in WW1, or in Korea, or in Vietnam, or in the Civil War, or in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?

Its romantic hogwash. They’re no better or worse than any other generation.

Because it was the *entire* generation that did the job, not just some self-selected 2%, or a drafted 5%.

In WWII, a full 10% of the population (meaning — 80% of the men between 18-34 and non-trivial percentage of women) were in uniform on battlefields. The adults back home worked 60 hours a week in defense plants (gov’t-sponsored child-care so parents of small children would be able to work those jobs), while adolescents grew vegetables and scavenged for recyclable metal and paper and nylon and string, and the blackouts and the 85% income tax rates, the sugar and coffee and gas rationing, and prison sentences for war profiteering…

It really was all-in.