The Sailor Who Kissed The Nurse
By Michael Boyajian
The New York Times today had a story about the iconic photograph of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square at the moment World War II ended. This picture symbolized that generation’s journey from the Great Depression to ultimate victory over Fascism. A moment of instant joy, relief and triumph.
This leads to a question when does my generation, the Baby Boomers, have their moment of joy, relief and triumph? When do we get to kiss the nurse? Is it not enough that we have fought wars on and off for 60 years, landed a man on the moon, revolutionized American society with the Woodstock festival, launched the ages of the PC, Internet and Cell Phone, brought a criminal president to his knees while elevating another, an African American, into that white house?
We overcame the threat of communism and brought the wall down and began the dismantling of superpower nuclear arsenals that could extinguish the planet many times over. We led the fight for civil rights from the 1960s of Martin Luther King to 2010 and same sex marriage. We awakened the world to our environment and we are now surviving the Great Recession.
When do we pause to kiss the nurse? When does the whole world stop as two people kiss in the middle of swirl of a thousand people? Or do we just go on doing until we run out of gas and fade forgotten into the recesses of history our greatest achievements taken for granted by subsequent generations?
Some called the World War II generation the greatest generation but I think there were many more from the American Revolution to the Civil War to the Great Depression and Second World War and finally to the Baby Boomers all great and hopefully all not forgotten.
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