Look to Our Fathers

For My Father

Context

It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.

- Tom Brokaw, “The Greatest Generation”

The Second World War was the culmination of a global disruption that still echoes through our world’s economic, social, and environmental fabric some 70 years on. The world in which you grew up was uncertain. Sandwiched in the middle of two world wars was a catastrophic economic collapse.

You, Mom, and your parents endured a brutal first half of the 20th century.

Your generation’s sacrifice stopped an existential threat to the world as we know it.

Hitler was finally defeated, but not before Germany and much of Europe lay in ruins. Japan was prepared to fight to the death. It would not be special forces, “cyber warfare,” or drones that would finally prevail. Only boots on the muddy ground. Your boots among them.

You were in boot camp on August 6, 1945, the day that the atom bomb “Little Boy” was detonated over Hiroshima. With a brilliant flash, the world changed forever, though it took one more nuclear detonation for Japan to commit to ultimate surrender.

That peace would come only after unleashing such a terrible weapon marked the beginning of a new world…