I grew up knowing that all of my grandfathers and great uncles had done their part to win the war. They were the generation of heroes. Grandpa, on my mother's side, road supply lines for the allies. On my father's side, grandpa was discharged due to physical disabilities. During his discharge exam the doctor told him, "I don't know how you faked it through the first examination!"
Today, our involvement in Iraq, Syria, and whatever else in the Middle East next becomes a ISIS stronghold threatens to become WWIII of our history. If my son is lucky, it will be in the history books by the time he gets to high school, where they'll watch movies about brave Americans trekking the desert in motley crews, battling the evil ISIS troops shouting, "Death to America!" as they fire their weapons. But what will he think of us--the GenX and Millenials--that will be fighting the coming war?
Will we be the heroes? Will we be the stuff of legend? Or are we going to another in a long line of power seekers, oppressors, thugs. The same way we, in America, view the British of the Revolution, the Japanese of WWII, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Putin, Hitler, George W Bush and Dick Cheney.
What will we say of our choice to go back to a land we couldn't liberate the first OR second time?
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