The Greatest Generation
ForbesThe Greatest Generation is the generation of young men and women who participated in World War II. This term was coined by Tom Brokaw, who said that they were the greatest generation any society has ever produced. The generation that he is talking about were too young to experience the disappointment of World War I, which was optimistically hailed as "the war to end all wars." Many of them remember the relative economic prosperity of the 1920s, but they came of age during the Great Depression and then when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, men from this generation volunteered by the hundreds of thousands to fight in World War II. While the others served a supporting role on the home front, filling jobs left empty by the recently departed soldiers. Once the war was over, this generation oversaw the American economy as it expanded to become the largest in the world. Its members lived through the turbulent 1960s, when civil rights and the controversy surrounding the Vietnam War tested the country's ability to adapt and progress as a nation (Pumphrey).