Posted on 06/06/2013 4:46:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
Over the last seven decades, 115 veterans of World War II have served in the United States Senate. This week, the last of them, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, died.
Two World War II veterans still serve in the House -- Ralph Hall of Texas, who was a Navy pilot, and John Dingell, who joined the Army at 18 and was scheduled to take part in the planned invasion of Japan.
There aren't likely to be any more members of what Tom Brokaw labeled the Greatest Generation to serve in Congress. All surviving World War II veterans (except a few who lied about their age) are at least 85 years old.
In the 68 years since World War II ended, veterans of the conflict have played an outsized role in American politics -- more than veterans of any other conflict since the Civil War.
No one paid much notice when Barratt O'Hara, the last Spanish-American War veteran in Congress, died in 1969.
Nor did anyone direct much attention to the retirement from Congress of the last two World War I veterans in the 1970s -- Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana (who lied about his age to enlist) and Sen. John Sparkman of Alabama (who served in the Students Army Training Corps).
In contrast, World War II veterans made a big splash in politics starting shortly after the war ended. Dozens of young veterans were elected to Congress in 1946, including future Presidents John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
The two had offices near each other and, as Christopher Matthews chronicled in his 1996 book "Kennedy and Nixon," were on friendly terms until they became political rivals.
When they ran for president in 1960, both were in their 40s -- a vivid contrast with the much older presidents of the previous two decades.
From Kennedy's victory that year until George H.W. Bush's defeat in 1992, a period of 32 years, every president served in the military during World War II, although Lyndon Johnson's service was brief and Jimmy Carter did not graduate from the Naval Academy until after the war was over.
Many other members of the Greatest Generation entered politics early and made a mark. Lloyd Bentsen, first elected to Congress in 1948, and George McGovern, first elected in 1956, were both bomber pilots, an extremely hazardous duty.
Three future senators -- Philip Hart of Michigan, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Bob Dole of Kansas -- first met in a rehabilitation center in Battle Creek, Mich., where they were recovering from serious wounds.
More than 400,000 American servicemen died in World War II -- 100 times the American death toll in Iraq -- and the lives of millions were disrupted. But wartime service also opened up opportunities for many.
One of them was Frank Lautenberg. His prospects seemed dim. His father died when he was a teenager, and his mother ran a sandwich shop. But thanks to the G.I. Bill of Rights, he was able to attend Columbia University.
Most big corporations in those days did not hire Jews for management positions, but Lautenberg was able to get in on the ground floor of a startup company called Automatic Payrolls Inc.
Automaic Payrolls filled a niche created by the wartime institution of income tax withholding. Businesses needed someone to do the paperwork, and Lautenberg was hired as a salesman by the firm's founders.
Soon he became head of the renamed Automatic Data Processing (ADP), and under his leadership it processed paychecks for about 10 percent of the national workforce. With the fortune he made, Lautenberg was able to pay for his first Senate campaign in 1982.
Like many but by no means all World War II veterans, Lautenberg was a liberal Democrat, a fighter unafraid of navigating the sometimes troubled waters of New Jersey politics.
He retired from the Senate in 2000 but was happy to be called back by Democratic politicos to replace his scandal-struck colleague Bob Torricelli, with whom he had a stormy relationship, on the 2002 ballot.
The Greatest Generation has had a long and sometimes stormy run in American politics. Lyndon Johnson was tripped up by Vietnam, and Richard Nixon by Watergate.
Ronald Reagan did much to restore the faith in institutions that seemed so strong in what his generation always called The War.
Now, with just two World War II veterans in the House, the Greatest Generation is finally passing on into history.
Perhaps gone - but not forgotten.
Good, they left this country in the hands of the baby boomers. Why did they even bother fighting if it was all going to end like this?
Fought hard, governed poorly.
The WWII vet simply dominated my world as a natural thing from my earliest memories to...and suddenly they’re gone.
The WW II vet is a big part of my earliest memories: My Grandfather...the VFW...his buddies...etc. they were great, hard working men. Yet...their politics. They left us with the modern democratic party run by their spoiled brat children who are bound and determined to ruin the country they fought for.
They made great warriors...but really crappy parents (by and large). I'm not sure if it was their exposure to hard times and trauma or what...but most of these guys did not govern like the warriors they were (even McCain)...and their kids are worse.
I often wish my father had told me more about his service during WW2 brfore he passed. I had to dig most of the info out of public records. All I got from him was that he was the XO of a destroyer named USS Heermann in the South Pacific. I had to go to public records to find out that USS Heermann participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
To have served on the USS Johnston, USS Heerman or the USS Samuel B. Roberts at the Battle of Leyte Gulf was to have faced certain death and lived to tell about it.
In many respects, it was the greatest battle in the history of naval warfare.
Keep in mind too, if the oldest of the Greatest Generation and their parents could have been bothered to hold Germany to the terms of the Versailles Treaty, WWII would never have happened.
I grew up surrounded by WWII vets. Remember all the St. Christopher medals? Remember the anchors tattooed on your uncle’s upper arm? Remember the smoking of Lucky Strikes and Camels? And tales of chocolate bars being handed out to civilians? It was a wonderful world, the post war world...
Err...McCain is not a WWII vet. Strange post to say the least.
“Perhaps gone - but not forgotten.”
In the case of Lautenliberal, forgetting that piece of excrement is essential for a good mental life.
He was slime, and now he becomes slime.
Sorry, but being a lib totally negates anything done for our military.
In fact, I consider a lib to be very close to a mortal enemy of our military.
And a great many of our military agrees.
“Keep in mind too, if the oldest of the Greatest Generation and their parents could have been bothered to hold Germany to the terms of the Versailles Treaty, WWII would never have happened.”
Good point. Up through Vietnam, I made a point of noting that all 4 wars of the 20th Century that Americans got dragged into were started with Dems in office, and usually cleaned up by Republicans (except WW2).
I suspect that largely it had more to do with depression era childhoods than wartime experience. They simply wanted their kids to have things better than they did, and in many cases, went way overboard.
Many of our public school teachers were WW2 vets in the 1950s-1980s. Public schools all over America, even the largest cities were very good back then. They had discipline and orderliness. You feminize these schools and they turn into violent snake pits...the ones in the big cities do
If we could only attach electrical generators to all the graves of WWII vets. I’m sure they are spinning in their graves when they see what nobama, his minions, LIB pinheads and DIMocRATs are doing to this wonderful country.
My Dad joined the Army Air Corps in May of 45. Up until two years ago we thought he was in the MATS. we were at a Memorial Day Mass and friend of ours asked him about his service. we found out he had flown two missions in a B-24 and had seen the atomic bomb loaded.
The “Greatest Generation” established and expanded the Welfare State that is now collapsing. They were some of its biggest beneficiaries. They took a country that had little to no debt and created a system that mortgaged our future so that the current generation could get more in transfer payments. Now the Boomers and Generation X had their part in it too — especially the Boomers — but this system of mass transfer payments was set up by the “Greatest Generation.” They may have done good, but they also set this nation up for collapse with ever expanding transfer payments and social welfare payments that we now can’t get rid of and can’t afford.
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