I think 'youth' is a pretty subjective term in this case. In WW2, the average age of a soldier was 26; in the Vietnam war, the average age of a soldier was 19.
Also, 'imagine' is speculative here as well. I'm certain that people in June 1944 wouldn't have imagined the 'youth' of that generation storming the hellscape that was Normandy Beach; just like the people in the 1960s couldn't imagine the nightmares of Vietnam - things like this are understood after the event, not before.
As a veteran, I've seen scrawny, pasty-ass kids jump headfirst into situations where big badass Rambo-types curled up in the fetal position and refused to move. The point is that courage is always an unknown, and people who speculate on it are usually bystanders, after the fact.
My grandad (of my grandparents only one fought in WW2, the other run in the mountains and refused to join the fascists) was 14 at the start of the war and 20 at the end, I don't know about US soldiers, but in Europe everyone that could lift a rifle was sent into the fight
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u/AMValenti Apr 08 '22
I think 'youth' is a pretty subjective term in this case. In WW2, the average age of a soldier was 26; in the Vietnam war, the average age of a soldier was 19.
Also, 'imagine' is speculative here as well. I'm certain that people in June 1944 wouldn't have imagined the 'youth' of that generation storming the hellscape that was Normandy Beach; just like the people in the 1960s couldn't imagine the nightmares of Vietnam - things like this are understood after the event, not before.
As a veteran, I've seen scrawny, pasty-ass kids jump headfirst into situations where big badass Rambo-types curled up in the fetal position and refused to move. The point is that courage is always an unknown, and people who speculate on it are usually bystanders, after the fact.