‘Greatest generation’ is fading, but it’s still got choice words for our own
Remember the greatest generation? The ones that beat back the Nazis? Recently I sat down with two of them, to talk about everyday persistence, about stability, about things that abide. But we weren’t five minutes in when it veered in the exact opposite direction — to the rise of neo-Nazis in the news today, the demagoguery of a certain president and to an eerily familiar chill . “I remember back in the ’30s and ’40s, it was like people were hypnotized,” says Wilma Matz, 93. “I worry all the time it might be happening again.” Most Read Stories Unlimited Digital Access. $1 for 4 weeks. Numerically speaking, Wilma and Harold Matz are rarer around here than the endangered northern spotted owl . At 95, Harold is a World War II vet , a medical technician who pulled the maimed off the line of the war’s bloodiest fight, the Battle of the Bulge. All but 3 percent of his 16 million mates who beat back fascism are gone. The greatest generation has dwindled to just 0.2 percent of the American po...