European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 7, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday june 7, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 23generation c knows How deep reality bites Ellen Goodman commencement season arrives in my City As it always does bearing its bumper crop of lilacs and Black Robes. Grunge and rap music mix in the air with pomp and circumstance. Excitement and anxiety arc spoken simultaneously in the body language of soon to be former students. One by one the careful rites of passage Are enacted. One by one the speakers come to escort the Young graduates verbally out of the Academy and into what they Call the real world. F done to envy the Job this year. After All the message for this class has already been carved in Stone or at least in celluloid the Best known valedictorian of the year was Winona Ryder a graduate of Hollywood who stood at her symbolic cinematic podium at the very opening of reality bites. After lambasting her a / elders a generation Viii generation in a in proper valedictory tradition she came to the part in her speech when she would exhort her own generation. Quot the answer is she said pages fluttering in the wind a slightly stunned expression crossing her face. A the answer is. I Don t  this sentiment brought Waves of applause from her classmates on the screen and in the audience. Quot i done to know has become a motto for the class of 1994 the Way a make love not War was for the class of �?T68.if according to the cliches the class of 1984 headed lockstep for Wall Street the class of 1994 is warily wandering into a real world of a jobs and my Temps. Their laser printed resumes updated on computer programs that did no to exist when they were born Bear a Good Strong fear of the future. They carry a recognition of reality a bite. This is the generation born to and bored with baby Boomers. They were raised in front of the tube by unravelling families in an unravelling Economy. Some look Back on the �?T80s As the Good old Days Ana others look Back on the �?T50s a studied in endless sitcom reruns a As a child a Eden. But the nirvana of the �?T90s was destroyed by the suicide of Kurt Cobain. We Are told again and again that for the first time we have a generation of americans who done to believe that they will be better off than their parents. They see the world Booby trapped with unintended consequences. What to do a i done to  Well i will not take away from generation x a or a or whatever a its sense of uniqueness. Its something that ironically every generation shares. But i wonder How certain the parents of the class of �?T94 were or their parents. What about the generation that graduated into the depression or into the �?T60s? and even if we were certain How did our Youthful certainties stand the test of time it seems to me that reality always bites. Sometimes it nibbles and sometimes it goes for the jugular. But it leaves Teeth Marks on All of us. In her new Book peripheral visions Mary Catherine Bateson the daughter of anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson says that she often asks adults to do two narratives of their life history. One version is based on a straight line from yesterdays certainties to today a realities a everything 1 have Ever done has been heading me for where i am  the other one is based on discontinuity a it is Only after Many surprises and choices interruptions and disappointments that i have arrived somewhere i could never have anticipated a we could Tell both stories. But she says Many of us choose Only one the talc of continuity. Its the one that makes us seem retrospectively in charge of our lives As if we were and Are in control of Fate rather than adapting to change. Its the tale we Tell ourselves and our children. Yet it s a tall tale Only half True at Job interviews Bateson says people arc asked what they want to be doing in five years. She says a a a something i cannot now imagine is not yet a winning  so perhaps the class of 94 Isnit that different from any class of Twenty somethings. We All live in a changing Public and private world. But when asked about the future this generation has the honesty to answer a i done to  on the final exam they got it right. C Boston Globa. Let s not forget benefits of military service i remember Pearl Harbor because my father a world War i Veteran volunteered at once for military service he was turned Down. I remember a Day for the blurred combat photographs of american soldiers going bravely ashore into a Hail of fire. We who Are now pushing into our 60s grew up thinking that it was As american As Apple Pic to take a turn in uniform. The korean War was still on when we were leaving College. Some graduates were ready to taste War and some were not. But without debate except As to the particular Branch or program you were applying for almost everyone went in. What s More almost everyone in my gang thought there was something Good about military service. Either it taught you a lot about a much broader spectrum of americans than any one of us had Ever been exposed to or it provided a first look at How a big organization gets things done or it gave you a certain satisfaction for a a serving your country a despite the fact that those of us who ended up in what was the peacetime military did not serve in any dangerous Way. A Young second lieutenant who had never bossed a soul suddenly found himself formally in charge of the work and w Elfare of 30 or 40 people including kids and older noncommissioned officers who had seen combat. It was a maturing experience. It left Many of us quietly appreciative of the system that had offered this Opportunity Mark me Down As one who regrets that a few years of military service no longer constitute part of an average Young person s universe. Alas the whole notion of service turns out to be generational As we embark on what will be a Long year of 50th anniversary observances of Victory in world War ii it is Worth noting what has been gained and what lost by this fundamental change in a citizens Public obligations. What is gained is an extra two or three years Worth of personal Freedom a no Battlefield risk and no one ordering you around. To serve is now often considered 1 gather strange nutty uncool a waste. Even in peacetime circumstances the benefits of nonparticipation Stephen s. Rosenfeld Are prize by Many Young people and not Only Young people. They arc prize specifically Over the forgone benefits of military Itofe in terms of people met places seen and challenges faced. What is lost is the experience of working in a Public Enterprise. True service in uniform can Breed cynicism As Well As civic mindedness i would not insist that military veterans make better citizens. But at the More enlightened end of the spectrum there Are lessons to be Learned from living under a code of discipline a lessons of personal reliability and Public purpose that Bear directly on the matter of concern for others in the society. The military is one place where those precious lessons can be Learned. Vietnam fouled us up terribly on the Issue of military service. The Vietnam conflict gave life to the notion that individuals should choose the wars in which they Lake part and should not leave this question up to the elected government alone. Down that path lies a Triumph of participatory democracy but also a series of dilemmas for representative democracy which is the kind we have. Bill Clinton As a student was a pick your War Man. He had conscientious objections to the War that happened to be on when his time came and he chose not to serve. Now he a the commander in chief struggling to be True at once to an oath of off ice t hat commands him to protect the nation and to a personal code that inclines him to leave room for individual Choice. It was a bit jarring to hear him on the radio recently holding out the sacrifice of a Day veterans As a Model for americans continuing commitment to Freedom. But he was right about the a Day veterans even if the words did not fall naturally from his lips. The military draft distributed service and risk More or less fairly across the american male landscape. President Nixon ended the draft by Way of proving to the american people he would not Send their sons to Vietnam. For a Short term political purpose he did a Long term social harm separating the population into protectors and protected and thinning the Exchange Between them. Certainly we have a Fine fighting Force. We also have a military not fatally but in some degree less Able than it might be to learn from the society a and to teach the society in return. C washing it on Posl