Lessons from the first forty-five years

Today marks the forty-fifth year I’ve walked God’s earth. That’s not long when you think about it. Certainly my life hasn’t witnessed the changes that previous generations saw.

For instance, my grandmother--born in 1904--saw transportation change from the horse and buggy to the automobile. She saw the steam locomotive give way to diesel and a simple aircraft become a space shuttle. Radio ascended and television was born. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both rose and fell. There was a Great Depression and enough war for any one person short of Gen. Patton.

It seems that my brief existence pales in comparison. Even so, I and my contemporaries have witnessed some interesting events and amazing innovations.

In my childhood television was a black and white screen that received only VHF signals, with only two channels available. One afternoon my father brought home a UHF converter and our viewing opportunities doubled. Four channels. Let’s hear it for technology.

Today there are hundreds of cable and satellite networks, with each dedicated to a specific interest. There are sports channels, music channels, food channels, news channels, you name it. Ironically, there seems to be no more worth watching now than there was then.

Eight-track tapes came and went, thank goodness. Cassettes did likewise. Vinyl records succumbed to the compact disc, which are now falling victim to the I-pod. Video games consisted of two white lines that batted a small dot across a screen. If you had “Pong” you were at the top of the childhood heap. But it wasn’t exactly a PlayStation or an X-box.

Computers smaller than a notebook are infinitely more powerful than the ones used to launch Apollo 11, which apparently means they crash with greater frequency. Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man” came into our living rooms via a grainy black and white transmission. Now the reusable space shuttle has become obsolete and space launches are considered routine if not boring.

Walter Cronkite was America’s newsman. His voice was calm and measured, encouraging a nation’s trust. I later realized he was just another media mouthpiece and an apparent ally of our enemy in Vietnam.

Speaking of Vietnam, that war became the confirming moment in how America approaches war. In Vietnam our troops would take targets only to be pulled back after their victory. Predictably the enemy would reoccupy the area. Within days we would send troops to take the same location again. It was a recipe for frustration and futility. And in some ways that is how we have managed war in the post 9-11 era.

America once fought its enemies tooth and nail. War was waged against an entire nation, not just the uniformed military, and nothing less than victory was sufficient. Now we want to fight military personnel while building goodwill and trust among the civilian population. Do we not realize that civilians are the friends and family of the uniformed military, for that is where soldiers come from?

Also during Vietnam Hollywood celebrities--can you say Jane Fonda?--sided with the “oppressed” Vietcong or North Vietnamese Army. During current wars Hollywood celebrities side with, well, I guess some things haven’t changed at all.

American society and Western Civilization were once secured on a centuries old morality. That has been turned inside out. America has produced a fundamental human and constitutional right to abortion when no such language appears in the Constitution. Sexual depravity, while it has always existed, is now celebrated. In fact, the definition of normal has been altered to exclude normality altogether.

Illegitimacy rates were once low and unwed pregnancy was considered shameful. Now it is nothing extraordinary and illegitimacy rates increase in conjunction with government dependency. A president taught a generation that oral sex isn’t really sex.

Technology has changed. Morality has changed. The world in all facets has changed, in some ways for the better and in others for the worse.

According to Center for Disease Control estimations I have 30.8 years left to live, meaning I’m far more than halfway to the end of the line. Please indulge me a birthday wish or two. May positive changes continue unabated while those for the worse are reversed. And when the sons of my generation reflect on 45 years of life may they see only change for the better.