EP 336 The 9-11 Generation Comes of Age
Each generation has its capstone event defining the way it looks at the world. As a baby boomer, with the civil rights movement, the first moonwalk, as well as the Vietnam War and the assassinations of our leaders, it was a complicated mix of hope and despair. For those now going off to college for the first time, being eligible for military service and joining first responder ranks in their community, the signal event in their lifetime was 9-11. It may have been the first time they saw their parents grieve openly and admit that the world isn't as safe as they tried to make it for their children. When you couple this with the financial meltdown of 2008 and this generation has seen a more vulnerable America than the one that owned the world stage at the close of the last century. So how does that affect the way they look at the world? We got a glimpse of it in the wake of the killing of an Iranian general by an American drone when social media shared the concerns of a generation about WWIII. As a podcast that focuses on social change, we thought it would be a good time to talk about the 9-11 generation at this crucial stage as they are poised for new challenges. And when many will, for the first time, vote in the 2020 presidential election. We discussed this with Garrett Graff, author of 'The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9-11'.
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