The Greatest vs. the Latest Generation
Dennis Prager hits the nail on the head again in his A Letter to Our Soldiers in Iraq. He correctly points out that there is good and evil in the world and that so many here in America fail to understand this fact. Prager also correctly identifies their mission as good and the enemy they fight as evil.
The most powerful passage in the column follows.
“You know that there is real good and real evil in the world. You have seen both more than any of us at home will probably see in a lifetime. Why so many in America and the West generally no longer believe that there is good and evil, let alone in the importance of having good vanquish evil, is a subject for a book. But that is the problem here. So when, God willing, you return healthy and victorious, you will have another battle to wage — on behalf of moral clarity. In that regard we are losing our way. Millions of our fellow Americans — often the best educated — do not understand that those who send young people to blow up weddings, kindergartens, market places and college libraries in the promise of a paradise filled with young women are the Nazis of our time.”
This is very true- and unlike the “Greatest Generation,” who understood that wars have to be both fought and won, many of today’s Americans lack that moral clarity. As Prager notes, that problem is here- and it is a battle we will have to fight and win. If we fail, we risk more than the loss of strong morals alone. We will also loose our very nation because it will be paralyzed into inaction, unable to even defend itself while held in the grip of moral uncertainty.
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