America Has Failed the Greatest Generation
America Has Failed the Greatest Generation
Carol Schultz Vento, Ph.D., J.D.
June 6, 2024 was the 80th anniversary of D-Day. My 82nd Airborne father, Arthur ‘Dutch’ Schultz, was among the 18,000 American and British paratroopers who jumped into Normandy in the dead of night on June 6, 1944. Shortly after dawn, the land invasions began on beaches named Omaha, Utah, Sword, and Gold. This was the start of the Allies attempt to liberate Fortress Europe from the years long grip of Hitler’s brutal Nazism.
2,501 American lives were lost on D-Day. There would be more ferocious and costly battles in Europe during the 11 months until VE day on May 8, 1945. Approximately 405,000 more brave Americans died on foreign shores in Europe and the Pacific fighting for freedom and liberty. Over 670,000 were physically wounded.
Death and physical scars were not the only devastation visited upon the soldier in World War II. Many men returned home with invisible wounds from war trauma. About one million men during World War II were in sustained combat, approximately one/sixteenth of the sixteen million who served. Few are aware that forty percent of medical discharges during the war years were for combat related reasons. www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/wwii-post-traumatic-stress
My father returned home to the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia with two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and posttraumatic stress disorder, which was not an officially recognized diagnosis until 1980. His VA records mention anxiety neurosis, inability to digest wartime experiences, and alcoholism. If a soldier like my dad, who was portrayed in The Longest Day movie by Richard Beymer, and written about in books, including those by Cornelius Ryan and Stephen Ambrose, was suffering and didn’t receive help until late in life, how many thousands of others who didn’t have the recognition of their service that my dad had were also in turmoil?
World War II veterans have been feted as the “Greatest Generation”, deservedly so. But have we failed them? By not acknowledging the cost of that war in lives lost, physical wounds, disability and post traumatic stress disorder, a one sided narrative is universally accepted. Few Americans are aware of the treatment of traumatized veterans in VA hospitals in the decade after the war. Lobotomies, insulin and electric shock therapy were often used in the era before pharmacological. www.WSJ.com/LobotomyFiles
Even in 2024, there are 72,000 American military still missing from World War II, a number that seldom in known by the public.
By minimizing their enormous sacrifices, we are not acknowledging the cost to our World War II soldiers who fought for liberty and freedom against fascism and tyranny on foreign shores. When many Americans are willing to support the possibility of a failure of our democracy today, the true patriotism of the Greatest Generation is ignored and disrespected. As a nation, we need to recognize the battles of our fathers and grandfathers on foreign soil and demonstrate a similar fortitude to stand up for the values that generation supported. The recent danger to Europe from the Trump administration has upended a NATO alliance, which has been in existence since 1949. Europe, for the first time since America’s entrance in WWII, can no longer count on the support of the United States and there has been discussion about creation of a European Army,
In addition, the dangers to our Constitution, the rule of law, and the role of the courts in America are present today. Will we stand up to the attacks on our long standing alliances and threats to our system of government, which has been a beacon of hope for decades, or will the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation in assuring freedom in Europe be forgotten?
Carol Schultz Vento has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Temple University and a law degree from Rutgers University. She is the author of two books, The Hidden Legacy of World War II: A Daughter’s Journey of Discovery and Twisted Strands: Family Secrets and Intergenerational Trauma
