Perhaps I used the wrong modifier when I said kids today are “mostly” useless. A large percentage are, if not the majority, but of course there are good kids today, as your paired Eagles testify.
I’ve read many a story (and written a few of them, in my journalist days) about kids who do brave, wonderful, generous and patriotic things. But too often I see kids doing stupid, selfish and self-serving things, to the detriment of society. I blame bad kids on bad parents, and we certainly have plenty of those.
But I stand by my assertion that veterans may be needed to teach the young when the time comes to recover our freedom and liberty. Many a “punk” was turned into a “good man” with the help of a loud gentleman in a Smokey the Bear hat.
(Two Eagles in the same family ... bully for you, Bear! Good job of parenting!)
Thanks, and I agree with your assertion—The young have always needed the guidance of adults, that’s why God made us (at least that’s what I tell my Scouts).
While it’s disheartening to see so many young people apparently frittering away their lives, I try to remind myself of a story my grandfather once told me. He was a middle-aged parent looking in disgust at the young “wastrels,” his own sons included, cavorting on the beach during the summer of 1938. Several years later, those same wastrels had engineered the defeat of the 1000-year Reich.