The Greatest of These
Greatest Generation
“The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
[…]
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” — General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Order of the Day, June 6, 1944 (D-Day)
About 80 years ago an entire generation of young men were called upon to drop everything and head off to Europe or the Pacific to stem the tide of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. They said goodbye to their jobs, their children and their wives to fight for the free peoples of the world. Their purpose was clear. When more than 10,000 of these men landed on the beaches of Normandy, they laid down their lives in legions, but the march to Berlin was on. And they did not stop fighting and liberating until the Axis Powers surrendered, first in Berlin and then in Tokyo.
And for their heroic efforts, we call them “The Greatest Generation.” Because that’s what great men do. They leave all that is dear and they storm the beaches and push back the tide of evil, sacrificing life and limb for God, Country and the Free World.
They advanced with the prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere and the blessing of Almighty God.
Things Fall Apart
“He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and finding nothing but ashes of bygone days..”― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
In the Generations since, we have had wars of varying success and popularity. Technology and smart munitions have saved the lives of countless waves of unskilled young men. Preferring highly trained and specialized soldiers in smaller groups with a mix of complementary skills, modern warfighting has changed quite drastically. It also means that whole generations have revered the stories of the Greatest Generation, but have not known what it feels like to have such a singular purpose.
Over time, we built great institutions with the same diligence we built tanks to defeat enemies. We programmed sophisticated machines with the same world-beating enthusiasm that carried the banners of liberty. And we optimized algorithms to accelerate those advances far beyond the control of even ourselves. And we label everything “smart” from TVs to toasters. But while we find ourselves aimless in our purpose, these devices, these websites and social media apps have one dumb, singular one: keep us staring at them while the occasional ad flickers by.
Once we were divided Axis vs Allies, authoritarians vs freedom-lovers, socialists vs free-market capitalists. And we the Allies, we the liberators, we the democracies of the west, we the capitalists out-fought, out-produced, and out-innovated each threat that stood against us. Today, these smart/dumb algorithms see our innate, warrior desire to take a stand and so they divide us into iPhone fanboys vs Android fanboys, Ford drivers vs Chevy drivers, red teamers vs blue teamers, maskers vs anti-maskers, and on and on. And the great institutions whither and die while we bury our heads in our phones. We can’t be bothered with what is right in front of us while our minds are miles away, outraged by a statement by a city councilor in California or a tweet from a Chinese technocrat.
Our homes, our families, our schools, our communities fall apart. And we are broken men.
A Farewell to Arms
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places” -Ernest Hemmingway, A Farewell to Arms.
Ah, to be Ernest Hemmingway! Boy did he have it figured out. He was truly a man’s man. He established his writing bona fides as a journalist accompanying the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy. It took the same stones to crash the beaches with pen and paper as it did to charge in with a rifle. Later on a manly hunting expedition he survived two plane crashes on consecutive days. He was invincible.
He took down exotic game on safari and fished monsters out of the sea on his boat. He could drop any beast with his best friend, a double-barreled shotgun from Abercrombie and Fitch. He could drop anything, including himself. As he did, with his shotgun, in his front foyer on July 2nd, 1961. There are many theories as to why he committed suicide: from an excess accumulation of iron in his tissue to CTE from various likely concussions. But he is not unique in this. Men are three to four times more likely to commit suicide. In 2020, nearly 70% of all suicides were white males.
While studies suggest that women attempt just as many as men, it seems men are more clear on their deadly purpose and their aim, more sure.
When things fall apart, when the world breaks every one of us, many are stronger at the broken places–but not all.
Shoal ‘Ware Shoal, Not I
“They christened my brother of old—
And a saintly name he bears—
They gave him his place to hold
At the head of the belfry-stairs,
Where the minster-towers stand
And the breeding kestrels cry.
Would I change with my brother a league inland?
(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I !”
— Rudyard Kipling, The Bell Buoy
A bell buoy sits in a channel or by a coastal shore to warn passing ships to beware of a nearby shoal. It doesn’t take days off. It doesn’t get packed away in the heat, in storm surges or with the crashing of thunder. Kipling personifies the bell buoy in a famous poem and compares him to a bell “brother” struck in the same foundry, but placed leagues inland in a bell-tower of church. To Kipling, the stoic, the world needs men who stand against the storm to cry out when things seem bleak. He finds purpose in doing ones job with great skill and earnestness.
There are easy ways to coast through life. We are often reminded how much sleep we ought to get. Our smart watches even conveniently yell at us to move, drink and sleep–if you have the latest app for it. Scientists claim to be on the verge of an “exercise in a pill” medication to kick our metabolism into high gear without a single burpee. And Mark Zuckerberg is sitting in the metaverse, just waiting for all of us to join in this brave new world where we all see one another through rose filtered glass. #nofilter #okaymaybejustalittlefilter
With AI technology seemingly poised to handle the manufacturing, the driving, even the lawyering and the doctoring, there is some logic to tossing fleshy, gooey humans into the metaverse and throwing away the crypto key. Amazon can fly the adult diapers by drones to our homes and headless Uber Eats vehicles could deliver the mush directly into the feeding tubes while the taco bell “dong” alerts us it’s feeding time. Our crypto wallets could sound a little chime each time the government deposits a relief check in our accounts. Life could be so simple…ding!
Beware the sandbar that lurks just beneath the surface of that future. Worse than an iceberg that rips an awful hole in the metal hull and throws you into action to save those around you. No, the sandbar hardly even sounds dramatic when you swish up on it. But being stuck is a rare form of torture. And no man deserves to live life stuck upon the sands, waiting endlessly for a change of tide. “Shoal, ‘Ware Shoal, Not I!”
Work with diligence and navigate life with skill. And ring out to your brothers when they drift too close to the shoal. We must move adeptly and look out for each other.
Stand on the Shoulders of Giants
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
— Sir Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke, 1675
Just over a hundred years ago, two Brits wrecked a Vickers Vimy aircraft with two Rolls Royce engines, nose first into a bog in Galway, Ireland. If you haven’t been to Galway, I highly recommend it. Flights from the east coast are fairly inexpensive and quite easy. You can kick back and relax while playing Angry Birds on the in-flight entertainment screen. Rewind back to 1919, and while wrecking such a beautiful airplane was in itself noteworthy, what made it historically noteworthy was where it took off from: Newfoundland, Canada.
Pilot John Alcock and navigator Arthur Whitten Brown became the first aviators to cross the Atlantic in a non-stop flight lasting 36 hours. Communicating by handwritten note due to the noise of the open-air plane, the two survived a nose-dive that nearly skimmed the Ocean water, and frozen engines that required Brown to crawl out onto the wing to knock ice free and restart them. Confusing the green bog as an open field, they wrecked it nose first but triumphantly walked away without injury.
Eight years later, an American named Charles Limburg would complete the first solo flight from continental America to continental Europe: New York to Paris. And landed his Spirit of St. Louis successfully. While mobbed by throngs of Parisians eager to congratulate him on the momentous achievement, Limburg said, “Alcock and Brown showed me the way.”
While our generational challenge is both new and novel, the virtues and skills it will take to overcome them are not. The pandemic tore us apart and technology fragmented us into disparate tribes along contrived lines. We emerged more polarized, cynical and bitter for it. But that isn’t the end of this story. We have seen schisms divide countless generations and we have seen what it takes to overcome it. We must listen to the stories of our fathers and grandfathers. Honor them, show them respect and use their lessons to better our world.
My father always told us that he was given broad shoulders to carry his family through tough times. It’s time we broaden our shoulders through hard work and carry society to a better place.
We see so much further when we stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. Lets be clear eyed in applying those lessons. Believe it or not, past generations have been divided before and some men saw clearly a way forward.
A House Divided…Cannot Stand
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
— Abraham Lincoln, Speech at the Illinois Republican State Convention, 1858
Incredibly, this “we should pick a side in the slavery debate” was a hot take at the time during a state senatorial campaign that Lincoln ultimately lost. Today, it seems everything is polarized, everything is dumbed down and we are fed one hot-take after another on the silliest of things: iPhone/android? Ford/Chevy? And social media algorithms are great at carving up the content, generating polarizing headlines, and nudging people into ever more precisely targeted advertising boxes.
The challenge we have as men and as fathers is to identify our core values and the things that truly define our character. Let the other stuff go and try to ignore the noise. Recognize when you are being nudged and resist as best you can. This is not progress in society, it is a terrible side-effect of modern tech algorithms. Teach your children about how social media feeds us and tries to elicit strong (most often negative) emotions to keep us scrolling. Knowledge is power.
And please, please, please be respectful of those around you. In polite conversation, a man never leads with his politics or his hot takes–leave that to the bots. If you are networking for business, keep the conversation on business. Enjoy conversations with people without backing them into an ideological corner. And try and assume that the other person is someone worthy of your respect. And maybe, just maybe that person has something worthwhile to tell you. Never tag a person who shows signs of Team Blue or Team Red with the most extreme and grotesque versions of Team Extreme Blue and Team Extreme Red. Respect seems to be a courtesy that has become less and less common. A true man treats others with respect–always.
Words Into the Darkness
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”
― Richard Wright, Black Boy
Institutions, customs and examples are passed along from generation to generation. This is crucial to the survival of our species. We have to be able to learn from those who came before us. But not all are worth echoing. As we examine the inputs that shape us, think of the outputs we are propogating. Shaping the future requires a hard introspection.
Take a hard look at your own life and habits. Decide where you should be more flexible and what pieces should be allowed to break and end up in the dustbin. At the same time, what are your core principles? Take the time to define the things you hold most dear. Hang on to them tightly and repeat the behaviors that re-enforce them even if they are unpopular. Then take a close look at your family tree. What traits and/or examples have been passed down to you? Which can you change for the better? Which are worth repeating for your children?
Some things fall apart because they were never stable enough to support the weight of time. While you start to define your purpose in this life, make sure you let the bad ideas die. Talking face-to-face with your fellow man allows you the opportunity to talk through the issues and correct your own record in real time. Putting your thoughts in writing forces you to defend them–even the ones that should be allowed to crumble. Don’t double down on bad ideas. Don’t out-dumb yourself!
But once you define yourself, your purpose, your core principles. Once you have laid down the mission you want to be known for and want to impart to others, hurl your words into the darkness, that they may echo on and on.
Way Leads on to Way
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
— Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
We all have probably heard the poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. I sometimes see it pop up as inspiration when scrolling on my phone–silly algorithm! The next time you read the entire poem, please note the lines: “Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same;” and, “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence.” This is not an inspirational poster or bumper sticker, the bots aren’t quite on Frost’s level just yet. Both roads were probably the same. And Frost never gets to know which was the better choice. We all have to make choices, but as way leads on to way, we can’t go back.
There will be forks in the road. Often you will not be able to tell which road is better (or even less traveled by). But you have to make a call. As you set about to lead your family, your brothers and your community, heed this message. Good leaders keep their eyes fixed on the end destination and realize that they will make plenty of decisions along the way. And they will even be forced to course correct at times. But never lose sight of the mission and the end goal. Repeating the same mistakes leads you in circles. And if you are trying to rally others around you, getting them stuck serves no one. Understand your core virtues, follow the mission, see further on the shoulders of giants and keep an intentional eye on the destination.
And yes–when you tell the story years from now–by all means tell people you chose the one less traveled by. If you are telling it from the place you aimed for, it won’t matter if that is a rhetorical embellishment of the journey. The echoes of your adventure will inspire those who stand on your broad shoulders.
Something Like You
“It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
― Ray Bradbury
If something were to happen to you tomorrow, what would your legacy be? Have you touched a garden and shaped it based on your own whims and desires? Or have you simply cut the lawn, again and again? What if, by the grace of God you live another, 10, 25, 50 years? What then could your legacy be? Intentionality is the gift we are granted. And the use of it, by our own hands is the gift we pass along. Think of your legacy and work backward to the present. What do you wish to shape?
We are all the children of God and we are made in his image. We have the incredible gift to fashion things in our own image to pass down to our children. Be intentional with your choices. We get stronger by our will to get up and workout our bodies. And it is good. We strengthen our brotherhood by showing up and being together–metaverse be damned. And that is good. We lift our wives and children onto our broad shoulders when times are tough and we shower them in love, always. And that is good.
Our legacy is what we fashion intentionally. Once we have aligned ourselves and our own household, we should seek to better the community around us. It is easy to reach a plateau once we have reached this stage. After all, that is quite an achievement–one we may have never imagined we could reach. But that can quickly become another sandbar. And things are always trying to fall apart. It is our duty to try and build a lasting legacy, shaped by our own hands.
Build something a little like you. Even if you are forgotten one day, a little bit of you will carry on.
Through a Glass Darkly
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
— 1 Corinthians 13 11:12, KJV
When I was barely 18, I began the movement from childish things to manhood. One morning, I also moved myself from solid road, to black ice, to a ditch in the blink of an eye. Miles from anyone, without a neighbor to help I ran for my family home. Back to the warmth of my mother and father. But I had lost too much blood and instead I slipped through the glass that separates us from the dark mirror to the bright light.
Though my physical body remained motionless in 3 feet of snow, I remember being transported in an instant to my mother’s kitchen. Around me, my sister and father were playing a game and having a blast. My mother was chatting with my brother with a wide grin and I was floating above, wrapped in the warmth of love. I couldn’t make out a single word that they spoke–I didn’t have to. They were mundane words, but they were loving words. I had transcended into the wordless murmur of some beyond.
I didn’t stay there long before a neighbor’s young son saw me lying in the ditch and got his father’s attention. “Daddy, there’s a man in that ditch!” I am forever thankful for his five-year-old eyes catching a glimpse of me. He truly saved my life. I have tried to thank him over the years, but the thought of seeing a nearly dead man has haunted him too much. I wish I could express to him the peace that I felt. Maybe that could give him a little faith.
Please do not misunderstand me. Every single moment since that day has been an absolute gift. And I try not to take any of it for granted. For a brief moment, I saw a little more clearly. I wasn’t afraid of death, but I am more committed to truly living then I ever was before. What I glimpsed was pure love. And I think there is something profound in that. Had I died, I fear my friends and family would have fretted over how I died: cold and alone, in a ditch full of snow. But that is the furthest thing from the truth.
I spent, what could have been my last moment surrounded by the warm murmur of loved ones, just being themselves.
Remember that we are only looking at this world through a glass, darkly. Things fall apart, we break and we will one day break beyond repair. We despair at this thought or the thought of loved ones we care for dying because it seems too hard to accept. Along the journey, inexplicable things will happen that we can’t fully comprehend. Beautiful people we thought were too strong or precious will be taken down by a disease, accident or by their own hand. Why? We only know in part. At some future point, just as we moved from a childhood understanding to an adult, so too will we move from an earthly understanding to a heavenly one.
In the meantime, we must lead and live with faith, hope, and above all, love. And not just with a childish, “its a small world after all” love, but the much more difficult type of love that comes with and often despite our adult understanding. That is, love your neighbor even if you don’t see eye-to-eye. Pray for your enemy so that you both can come to some peace. And demonstrate the love of forgiveness even when it is the last thing you can imagine.
Because faith, hope, and love are the only answers we have on this earth that bring us all together and give us a chance at healing. The alternative is spite, resentment, and hate. And those lead down dark paths that only tear us further apart. And when all is said and done, it is the love that will envelop us and carry us through the looking glass. So if there is a common beach for us all to storm, perhaps it is this one: technology has nievely nudges us toward cynacism, outrage and hate. Let the faith-loving, hope-loving and love-loving peoples of the world cheer us along our advance. We know what God wants us to do.
And generations after us will remember us for the hope we showed the world. They will one day be blanketed in the memories of how we treated them, the hope we showed in our battle to propagate love. The march to your legacy begins on this beach, armed with these three virtues.
And the greatest of these is love.
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Thank you F3 Charleston. I have enjoyed serving as your Nant’an. And am proud to call you all brothers. SYITG!
With Love,
Vila
Nant’an Emeritus (Holy City – West Side)