The Greatest Generation

     Ray 7-twenty-nine

He wasn’t from the Silent Generation,

but he was silent

He came from that Greatest group

who survived huge, hungry families

The ones who didn’t taste the false cornucopia

of the Roaring Twenties

Close enough to immigrant forebears,

he understood the struggle of endurance

He learned to make do

and built his life from scratch

He quit school to help feed his family,

rode the rails with others like him,

and found a home in the CCC’s

Maybe he wasn’t on the front lines,

but he gave his all

repairing the planes

that would defeat the enemy

His struggles made him a man

but left scars so deep,

generations would feel the wounds

A legacy centuries old

He maintained the unspoken stoicism

that masked turbulent emotions

simmering on the back burner

An intelligence so keen

and a drive so strong

he traveled the world

teaching others his craft

Like his own kind,

duties and obligations were fulfilled

Dignity was in hard work and hurdles overcome

His was the quiet nobility that powered the American engine

He studied diligently the bigger world,

but his world was black and white,
a world of right and wrong

Or so it appeared

Dismayed and perplexed by those who would follow

His world overtaken by turbulence and rebellion

that he did not understand,

he retreated into his own fortress

His life left to be explored and explained by others

who could only grasp at bits and pieces shared

by the silent man

                                                     Cynthia L. Cavanaugh 07/10