Hi, NorthMountain:
No love lost here either for Brokaw. But I believe that the expression is meant to refer to living generations.
Again, I want to stress that the dire challenges posed to that generation by the war in Europe and then the attack on Pearl Harbor were not their doing - they were foisted upon them - but that they mastered them admirably.
Subsequent generations were never given the opportunity to "show their stuff," to "shine," to display their merits under duress. "Some are born to greatness, others have it thrust upon them." The latter applies to the "Greatest Generation." Subsequent generations lacked that stellar opportunity.
Regards,
I'll expand my comments. In the larger historical sense, covering the whole history of the American Republic, the execrable Tom Brokaw's term "Greatest Generation" is simply wrong. In the narrower historical sense you suggest, it is both dubious (the "Great War" generation was still living) and fatuous. If the other living "generations" did not have the opportunity to demonstrate their greatness, then their greatness cannot be evaluated and there is no point of comparison.
Finally, I reiterate my final comment from the previous post:
In fact, this whole business of trying to force-fit millions of people into "generations" that all supposedly think and act alike is foolishness. It is leftist group-think at its absolute worst.