We Have Become Weak Generation...

This country is falling down... and I will tell you why.
Recently my wife and I have been having dinner about twice a week with my 88 year old grandmother and some very important things occurred to me. 1) I will never live to be that old and 2) I will never be that strong. And it is not just my grandmother that I am speaking of, but her whole generation who makes us look like a bunch of wimps.
Have you ever listened to your grandparents? I mean truly listened. They have seen things and experienced things that most of us would never be able to handle. They have lived in times that we could not fathom and do not even like to talk about. They not only lived through these things, they fought and strived.
I remember that horrible day of September eleventh and the reaction of my grandmother and my wife's grandparents. I am not saying that they were indifferent, they are in fact very warm people, yet neither were they destroyed like the rest of us. Why not? Because they have seen it before. They remember when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they recall the threat of Nuclear War and the air raid drills, they shipped their spouses off to war with nothing more than a ream of paper, some envelopes and a book of stamps.
Nowadays we get watery eyed watching a Hallmark commercial and change the channel when the news is too depressing. Our grandparents watched their President get assassinated, they dealt with polio, race riots and the red scare.
We fear a recession and hope that our we get our raise this year. They had the depression, waited on bread lines and were forced to choose between putting food on their table or clothing their children. They worked two hour, sometime three jobs, twenty hours a day. They did not have the aid or the option of Prozac, no one wanted to hear their sob story because everyone had their own. They made due with what they had and shared with their neighbor when there was excess.
We are in a severe state of emergency here and no one wants to talk about it. For the first time in a very long time this country is at the risk of not being the strongest nation in the world. We do not make things like we used to. We do not dream as big as we used to. And we do not dare to take the chance like we used to. We need to get back to the toughness of our grandparents and restore this once great country to what it once was. We need to take pride in our work, regardless if we are splitting atoms of scrubbing toilets.
It is not too late. There is still time to change. But if we do not change, and change in a big manner, soon we will be the ones on the bread line asking if there is any more bread left.
Is it hot in here or am I Crazy?