"These men of WWII...like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them until their Normandy and Iwo Jima sound distant on the ear like Shiloh and Valley Forge."
My WWII generation parents bore me relatively late in life—when they were in their mid 30’s.
There have been many times when I resented that “late start”. I was always the little kid that their friends’ older children pretty much ignored.
But your post makes me profoundly thankful to be one of the final keepers of the memory of the greatest generation.