By Scott Graber
It’s Thursday, July 4th, and it is hot.
Notwithstanding the heat we will have — here in Port Royal later today — fireworks, patriotic tunes and the drinking of lukewarm beer. This evening, a long column of people will descend on The Sands Beach determined to celebrate our nation’s birth notwithstanding the seizures, delirium and break-bone fever currently convulsing our body politic.
This morning I’ve got the New York Review of Books which has a profile on Norman Mailer. The profile is focused on Mailer’s novel, “The Naked and the Dead”, published just after World War 2.
“The Naked and the Dead” tells the story of a West Point-educated general; his Harvard-educated adjutant; and a platoon of enlisted men given a long range reconnaissance mission in the Philippines. In this novel, Mailer introduced the American reading public to flawed officers, terrorized enlisted men, “the vicissitudes of chance; the inscrutability of motive; the unknowability of other lives; the impulse to blame others …”
Well, you get the drift.
My generation, nicknamed Boomers, emerged from the (largely) consensual, post-war sex between our returning soldier-fathers and the wives they left behind. As children, we watched “Victory at Sea,” “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” and a hundred other movies that emphasized the heroism of these soldiers. In the 1950s we wanted confirmation that the United States had rescued the world from some very bad people.
We were not all that interested in “the vicissitudes of chance.”
Mailer’s novel was followed by “From Here to Eternity” (published in 1951) and “Catch 22” (published in 1961) which did not underscore heroism but, rather, focused on “enlisted man abuse” and the “fine line between sanity and madness.”
Then, in the late 1960s, the first members of the “pig-in-the-python” generation came of age.
When we arrived there happened to be a war underway, and there was a divide in our ranks. Some of us were skeptical about this effort to “contain” Communism — a/k/a as Vietnam—and terrified of the lottery. These Boomers rallied on the Mall, marched around the White House with candles, and some found doctors who would discover a disability.
The Boomers, who did their unhappy duty in the jungles around Khe Sanh, were disappointed with the reception they got when they came home. There was no random, recreational kissing on Times Square; and the movies, like “Born on the Forth of July,” did not memorialize their heroism. For the most part their stay-at-home brothers and sisters remained critical of their service in Southeast Asia.
The movies that came out — “Apocalypse Now,” “Platoon,” and “The Deer Hunter” — reinforced the futility of Vietnam. Most novels and non-fiction confirmed that Vietnam was a waste of troops and treasure. And I don’t believe that the men (and women) that fought in Southeast Asia ever got over this reception.
Nor did this divide (in Boomer generation) completely heal.
The Boomers who survived their Vietnam tour are now retired, in their 70s, and live in well-manicured, adults-only communities like “The Villages” (in Florida) where they drive their Club Car to happy hour and relive their wartime adventures with other veterans.
And usually they vote for Donald Trump.
This last statement is not based on empirical research; I just know that many of my Citadel classmates live in these places and vote for Trump, or Trump’s acolytes when the time comes. I suspect that this happens because there is a lingering resentment of the “Left” that is thought to be represented in the person of Joe Biden.
I suspect that these retired, mostly male Boomers are a part of Trump’s thin lead. They join a cohort of young, underemployed, white males who believe they’ve been pushed aside by minorities. And then we have the angry, camo-wearing bomb-throwers who are eager to burn down the marble temples that symbolize our beleaguered system.
A couple nights ago I was sitting in the darkness, on a neighbor’s porch, and asked him, “Where has the altruism gone? Once upon a time we were a compassionate people.”
He looked at me, saying, “It’s been replaced by fear.”
“Fear?”
“Yes, the Trump folks think that Biden is going to take away their stuff. Give it to the Blacks and the gang-banging illegals coming across the border.”
I know that we haven’t run out of compassion, or generosity, but it does seem that fear and anger (and promised retribution) have infected our bewitched, bewildered, fevered Republic.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
