The new "Greatest Generation"?

That's what last week's TIME Magazinecalls the veterans of the War on Terror. "A new kind of war meant a new set of skills. Now veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are bringing their leadership lessons home, where we need them most." The article speaks of their altruism. "But there is another, competing and decidedly conservative sense that is common to veterans: that AMerican society has gone soft and is filled with whiners, an entitlement culture lacking a sense of individual accountability." One vet, says author Joe Klein, who served in Congress, called his colleagues "a professional bed-wetting society." They share a sense of genuine patriotism.

All this sounds pretty good to me. Are there enough of them to make a difference. The WWII generation was heavy with vets. I doubt there was a single, extended American family that hadn't contributed at least one member to military service. Although the War on Terror has lasted ten years --- more than twice as long as WWII --- it hasn't touched as many households. Whatever the shared values among this new batch of vets, it just can't be as extensively shared across our society.

However, there are a number of vets organizations that may have an impact beyond their size, thanks to the Internet:

Student Veterans of America

Iraq and Iran Veterans of America

Purple Heart Homes

Team Rubicon

The Mission Continues

Operational Medicine Institute

Hire Heroes

When I was a kid, WWII was the dominant theme of our imaginative play... well, boys that is. If you had a dad who served, then you had gear from the attic that you could use to add realism to playing at soldiering. Second only to Westerns, it was soldiers --- not cops or lawyers --- who dominated the movie screens. Some great films were made amid all the John Wayne/Audie Murphy stuff:






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The Vietnam War also produced some great films:










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The War on Terror has already produced many outstanding films, most of which I've reviewed over the past decade at The History Place:

The Hurt Locker and The Green Zone

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A Mighty Heart

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Restrepo
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United 93
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World Trade Center
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The Kingdom
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Yes, the War on Terror certainly already has its own film genre. Can it also boast the next Greatest Generation, as TIME claims? Joe Klein's article is persuasive. We'll see. I hope so.