One for the ages - A long-overdue tribute to a generation of heroes

Sept. 30, 2001 One for the Ages Oct. 28, 2001 Over there, over here Nov. 18, 2001 Montana home front - State of readiness Dec. 7, 2001 Western Montana's memories of Pearl Harbor - PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS -

Sixty years ago, the attack on Pearl Harbor offered a wake-up call to American men and women - and the war years that followed helped to define a remarkable generation of Americans, both overseas and on the home front. Those Americans defeated worldwide tyranny and then, back home, reshaped the United States and the postwar world.

Commentators and historians have called those Americans "The Greatest Generation." This special Missoulian section is intended as the first of four sections paying tribute to those American men and women, both those who fought overseas and those who worked on the home front. The published sections are just one part of a larger Missoulian project, "Salute to the Greatest Generation," which will continue through the end of this year.

We hope that our project pays tribute to these remarkable Americans. But, just as important, we hope to be able to educate younger Americans about the remarkable contributions of this generation - and we hope, also, to trigger a conversation between the generations. It's a conversation that's long overdue.

For Part I, we tracked down and reproduced a selection of newspaper pages from the years of World War II. Some of these pages are from the Missoulian. Some are from an afternoon paper, the Missoula Sentinel, that the Missoulian published in those years. (We are indebted to the Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History for allowing us to use some of the newspaper pages from its collection.)

Future sections will feature oral histories and memories of the Montanans who fought in World War II, both overseas and on the home front.

On their own, these reprinted pages offer some insights into the accomplishments and attitudes of a generation of Americans. It sounds like cliche, but it's true: The fate of the free world rested on the shoulders of that generation. It was not a burden that those men and women asked for - indeed, who could make such a request? - but it was a burden that they shouldered, without complaint.

In the wake of the events of Sept. 11, however, these pages also may trigger some reflection about the challenges posed by a new world. How will America respond to these new challenges? We could do much worse to ponder the example set by an earlier generation of Americans, who also unexpectedly found themselves in a struggle against terror - and prevailed.