Generation Why?
The Baby Boomers
I am a baby-boomer. I was born in Falkirk, Scotland in 1953, 8 years after the end of the Second World War. My parents’ generation fought that war to prevent the spread of Nazism throughout Europe. Many of their contemporaries, both military and civilian, had been killed.
When the Second World War began in 1939 the British population stood at about 47,760,000. Of those who had signed up with the British forces some 383,700 were killed in action.
The German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, brought the conflict’s death and destruction across the English Channel and rained them down on the civilian population. About 67,200 British civilians died as a result of those air raids. All told World War ll took just under 451,000 British lives.
Similarly, the USA lost 407,300 military members and 12,100 civilians to the war, the latter mostly members of the Merchant Marine.
Other countries lost many of their sons and daughters, members of the military and civilians too.
The Russians lost a staggering 26 million people to the war. That equalled the entire population of Canada at that time plus 5 million more.
China saw 20 million of its sons and daughters lost to the war.
Every country that fought during the 6 years the war lasted lost a significant number of people, mostly young, mostly male.
There are a number of reasons for the baby boom. Many of the weddings that took place during the war involved active military members who were granted a short leave to tie the knot. Within a couple of weeks at the most they were back with their units again.
After the war ended the married military members were gradually demobilized and returned home to start the families they had deferred during the war. Others returned home, married wartime sweethearts and started families.
Perhaps they had seen so much death they felt compelled to create life.
The children of those couples are the baby boomers. Anyone born between 1946 and 1964 is classified as a boomer.
The reason I am writing this is because I read a Facebook comment claiming the baby boomers didn’t contribute anything of substance during our lives and dismiss us as old fuddy-duddies now.
This is my reply to her.
Far from it.
Most of us are still 50’s and 60s teens inside. We still have the music that changed what the world listened to and, as a bonus, annoyed the hell out of our parents. Bob Dylan in his song The times they are a’ changin’, told them “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.”
In 1963 our generation saw a beacon of light that had given us hope extinguished in Dallas. President John Kennedy.
We saw the hope rekindled as JFK’s brother Bobby Kennedy ran for President and then it was again snuffed out when he was assassinated 5 years after his brother died.
White people of our generation joined the push for civil rights. They marched with our black brothers led by Martin Luther King preaching peaceful integration by non-violent protesting. Then we saw him murdered too. We also saw the murders of 2 other civil rights leaders, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers.
Our generation didn’t just push boundaries we kicked them down, busted through them, chucked the debris aside and marched forward.
We questioned why things were the way they were, especially politically and socially.
We had “Protest” singers such as the aforementioned Bob Dylan, , Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Barry McGuire' and others.
We had musicians who had begun their careers as “Pop singers” and “Pop groups” who evolved into social commentators who posed their questions, protests and opinions in song. The Beatles, then John and Yoko protesting war in their own, unique way. We had Crosby, Stills Nash and Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more.
We stopped believing politicians every word. Politicians in the past had been treated, for the most part, very kindly by the media and the public but that changed. We asked why, we wanted the truth and we would expose their dirty little secrets. When we questioned what they told us we caught them in lies.
Especially Richard Nixon. We’ll get to him in a while.
Our generation stood outside of the places of government to protest against the Vietnam War. We had seen how war didn’t change a damn thing and wanted to give peace a chance.
The war was divisive, with adamant feelings both for and against it. It left deep scars in the American psyche.
It was unfortunate for Nixon’s predecessor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, that Vietnam was the first televised war. For the first time, TV gave the folks at home a much better vision of what war was really like. And they didn’t like what they saw.
The network newscasts kept track of how many American soldiers had died, both that day and so far in Vietnam. Americans saw their dead being unloaded from aircraft in coffin after coffin draped with the Stars and Stripes.
TV also showed pictures and videos of Vietnamese civilians, many of them children, gruesomely injured by American napalm bombings.
Napalm is a mixture of fuel and gel that sticks to its targets. Including humans. The fuel used is gasoline or jet fuel and it was put into a bomb with a thin outer shell that easily explodes and ignites upon impact with a target.
The burns napalm inflict are horrendous. Conventional napalm burns for 15 to 30 seconds. Napalm B is of a different chemical composition and burns for up to 10 minutes. Jumping into a river or pouring water onto burning napalm B is useless as it continues to burn when submerged in water.
That’s what the US military used in Vietnam.
President Johnson made the decision to escalate the war in 1965 and one measure he took more than doubled the intake of the Selective Service draft to conscript young men into fighting in Vietnam.
Thereafter Johnson sat in the White House listening, every day, to thousands of young protesters gathered outside chanting “Hell no, we won’t go.” and “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
The draft, by the way, overwhelmingly picked kids from the lower socio-economic levels of America while the sons of the rich and the politicians were able to duck the draft because of the influence and the money of their parents. Credence Clearwater Revival put the spotlight on that “phenomenon.” with their song Fortunate Son that contained the lyrics:
“It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one, no”
Fortunate Son written by John Fogerty.
LBJ decided he had endured enough and withdrew from the 1968 Presidential Election. By doing so he opened the door to the election of the most corrupt President America ever had until Trump came along.
Tricky Dick Nixon.
Part of Nixon’s 1968 election campaign was a promise to end the Vietnam War.
But two years later he ordered the invasion of Vietnam’s western neighbour Cambodia thereby escalating the conflict. Nixon believed the North Vietnamese were staging attacks on American and South Vietnamese troops from bases in Cambodia.
Every day there were protests against his decision at American universities including one on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. On May 4th, 1970, the 4th day of a protest 4 students were killed by the Ohio National Guard. Only 2 of the victims were actually taking part in the protest while the others were simply walking from one class to another. 9 other students were wounded.
The public outcry, coming from none more than Boomers, was as much about the way Nixon had given the command as did the order itself. He made his decision without telling his Secretary of State William Rogers or Defense Secretary Melvin Laird.
He kept it secret for two days before Rogers and Laird, the American people and the rest of the world found out about the invasion in a televised address by Nixon.
Members of Congress weren’t happy about his unilateral and secret decision. Many accused him of illegally intensifying the war by not asking for and receiving their consent through a vote. In another word:
Democratically.
The Vietnam War ended for Americans in 1973 as Nixon withdrew US troops to be replaced by South Vietnamese soldiers. By that time 58,220 American military personnel had died and nothing had been accomplished.
Nixon would be the first American President to resign in the face of being impeached for trying to cover up crimes committed by people working on his 1972 re-election campaign.
Those workers broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel and were caught. They had foolishly propped open a door that was meant to be closed and locked, however, a security guard discovered the propped open door and called Washington police who arrested the burglars.
The downfall of Richard Nixon had begun.
A lot of military drug addicts came home from Vietnam. More had used some kind of drug during their service there than hadn’t.
A 1971 report by the U.S. Department of Defense found that 51 percent of the members of the armed forces had smoked marijuana, 31 percent had used psychedelics, such as LSD, mescaline and magic mushrooms, and another 28 percent had taken hard drugs such cocaine and heroin.
Mind-altering drugs were plentiful in Vietnam and troops used them to help them escape the horrors of a needless war, seeing their friends die or lie mutilated on the ground around them.
Addictive drugs were given to military personnel by the order of their commanding officers in Vietnam but this wasn’t new. Axis and Allied forces in World War 2 were supplied “uppers” or “pep pills” as they were called.
US soldiers serving in Vietnam were given Dexedrine. It gives a person greatly increased endurance and awareness. However, it has a long list of negative effects including addiction. The American military was creating drug addicts and sending them home to fend for themselves.
When they brought their addictions home, they found plenty of dealers who took advantage of them without a second thought. These addicts were mostly from the Boomer generation. The average age of an American soldier in the Vietnam War was anywhere from 19 to 22 years old depending on which source you accept.
In the mid to late ’60s and early ’70s many male teenagers let their hair grow long and some were kicked out of their schools and out of their parents' homes simply because they refused to get their hair cut.
It seems ridiculous now, and it was. But it happened.
THE PILL came along and “Free love.” was born. One-night stands became common. Couples who met for the first time would have sex and part, possibly to never see each other again. The birth control pill had become their insurance policy against unwanted pregnancy.
The boomers had drugs: Pot, hash, LSD, cocaine and heroin.
LSD had a spectrum of effects. Euphoric to terrifying, good trips and bad trips. There was no guarantee that a user would have a good or a bad trip. It didn’t matter how someone had reacted to previous doses. Dropping Acid was a lottery in which the stakes were high if you’ll pardon the expression.
Some thought they could fly while on Acid and found out they were wrong a little too late.
Some Baby Boomers were hippies and followed the advice of American writer and psychologist Timothy Leary. He was an advocate of psychedelic drug research and use especially favouring LSD. In 1967, Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and spoke the words that would make him famous. “Turn on, tune in, drop out,”
Boomers grew up without computers and many of us have played parts in the development of the technology that now makes computers essential to almost everything.
We saw the first satellite launched and go into orbit. The first dog, then monkey, then man to travel into space, take a trip around the world and come back down to earth. Boomers became involved in advancing space exploration and travel to where it is today.
We saw jet aircraft take over air travel and some of us made aviation their careers. They played their part in advancing the technology and the industry to where it is today. People can now fly to the other side of the world in about 20 hours. Before long it will be far less. Passenger aircraft will fly higher, farther, and faster.
We witnessed and contributed to the evolution of Marshall McLuhan's Global Village.
We have made a lot happen, and we have seen a lot happen. We have shaped the world you and everyone else lives in.
Lastly, some of us developed the questionable facility to write horrendously long-winded answers to questions just waiting for Facebook to be invented.
