Then and now

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/admiral-gets-standing-ovation-for-colin-kaepernick-remark-at-pearl-harbor-ceremony-220920823.html

Admiral gets standing ovation for Colin Kaepernick remark at Pearl Harbor ceremony

Heroes then ....

“You can bet that the men and women we honor today – and those who died that fateful morning 75 years ago – never took a knee and never failed to stand whenever they heard our national anthem being played,” Harris said, according to the Associated Press.



.... and 'heroes' now.








http://www.iwojima.com/battle/battlec.htm

18-22 year-olds then ....

“Easy Company started with 310 men. We suffered 75% casualties. Only 50 men boarded the ship after the battle. Seven officers went into the battle with me. Only one–me–walked off Iwo.” . . . Captain Dave Severance, Easy Company Commander (the Flag Raising Company)
….
The battle was won by the inch-by-inch tenacity of the foot soldier. It was a physical war.
Liquid gas, napalm and hand grenades were more useful against the underground Japanese.
Historians described U.S. forces’ attack against the Japanese defense as “throwing human flesh against reinforced concrete.”

http://www.cracked.com/article_20617_5-movie-worthy-lines-said-by-real-soldiers-facing-death.html

As German forces plowed through Allied territory and closed in on the 12,000 soldiers holed up in that tiny village, a Corporal Carson of Easy Company (the group that Band of Brothers was based on) approached a medic and asked why everyone wasn't being evacuated. The medic (whose name has been lost to history, somehow) replied, "Haven't you heard? ... They've got us surrounded -- the poor bastards."


.... and 18-22 year-olds now.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-10/generation-snowflake-safe-spaces-trigger-warnings-and-wussification-our-young-people

At colleges and universities all over America, students are now demanding “safe spaces” where anything and everything that could possibly make them feel “uncomfortable” is banned.  And “trigger warnings” are being placed on some of our great literary classics because they might cause some students to feel “unsafe” because they may be reminded of a past trauma.  In this day and age, our overly coddled young people have come to expect that they should be automatically shielded from anything that could remotely be considered harmful or offensive, and as a result we now have an entire generation that is completely lacking in toughness.  That may be fine as long as you can depend on Mom and Dad, but how in the world are these young men and women going to handle the difficult challenges that come with living in the real world?
.........

This hyper-sensitivity has prompted the University of East Anglia to outlaw sombreros in a Mexican restaurant and caused the National Union of Students to ban clapping as “as it might trigger trauma”, asking youngsters to use “jazz hands” instead.

………

The following is one definition of “safe spaces” that comes from Wikipedia…
Advocates for Youth states on their website that a safe-space is “A place where anyone can relax and be fully self-expressed, without fear of being made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome or challenged on account of biological sex, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, cultural background, age, or physical or mental ability; a place where the rules guard each person’s self-respect, dignity and feelings and strongly encourage everyone to respect others.
And this is not a fringe movement at all.  These “safe spaces” are being established at some of the most prestigious universities in the entire country, and in at least one case a “safe space” included “calming music, cookies, Play-Doh and a video of frolicking puppies”…

………

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/well/family/the-fear-of-having-a-son.html?_r=1

The Fear of Having a Son

Ties

By ANDREW REINER OCT. 14, 2016

When my son, Macallah, was born five years ago, my college students asked how it felt to be a new father.
“Terrifying,” I blurted. “All I can think about is bullying.”
Silence and perplexed looks filled the room. “Your child was just born,” a female student said.
“I know,” I responded. “But this boy’s going to be raised to feel and express his vulnerability. That’s a curse in this culture.”
What worried me just as much was the flip-side realization: Whatever my wife and I tried to do to shape our son’s masculine identity would compete against such cultural norms as a postured indifference to school, which can lead to lower grades, graduation rates and academic motivation; a sports and gaming culture that exalt alpha domination (and aggressive male reflexes); and a tight-lipped John Wayne ethos that breeds alienation and, too often, depression.
All of the dread and loathing I’d always felt about the limiting script of traditional masculine norms came flooding back. I was faced with one of my biggest fears about parenthood: having a son.
The common wisdom, as research verifies, is that most men want sons. That’s starting to shift. Some men, like me, fear becoming fathers to sons.
………

Ms. Martin says that her own husband was relieved to have daughters instead of sons. He says: “‘I haven’t felt like I fit into a lot of the social norms around masculinity…. I’m much more interested in the challenge of helping a girl or young woman transcend sexist conditions. It feels more possible and more important, in some ways.”

………

The good news for boys is that men with a high emotional intelligence quotient don’t hand down these values. The bad news: Pressure from an unexpected corner makes such men gut-check their desire to embrace boys, not to mention their own emotional sensitivity.
A blogger on Vice, Chelsea G. Summers, thrills at how “misandry” — hatred of men — has become “chic.” She gushes that, in addition to a political agenda, this blanket antipathy promises some “great pop culture.” This has manifested itself, among other ways, through blogs and online essays and tweets that pillory and mock the growing trend of men crying — which, I know from my own and other men’s experience, can be the single act that most liberates and heals a painful past that devalues masculine sensitivity. Paradoxically, for some men, the third-wave feminism they embrace strong-arms them into muting the very sensitivity and empathy that opened their eyes to women’s plight.

………

Yet men like me abdicate our responsibility by letting other men — the ones who don’t always encourage the broader, deeper humanity within males — raise boys. And we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to heal old wounds.





Jesus pleezus.
Kill me now.