Family and Friends, Education and History: What Americans Should Value the Most

When speaking of a great time in American history one can not help but to mention our "Greatest Generation." The generation that made America the place it is today, that saw war on both a worldwide scale but also on a neighborhood scale. A generation that saw its young men go off to Europe and Japan and defeat some of the greatest military powers thought created and defeated them with glory and honor. They came home to America to a hero's welcome, which they greatly deserve.

Why are they labeled our greatest generation? It is because they cherished the three most important values Americans have: the treatment of one's family and friends, the future of higher education, and our rich history. This generation of men and women went out to protect these values that today seem to be diminishing. We need to bring back the values that once made our country great and something to be proud of and not the inconsiderate values we have grown accustomed too.

Generations ago men and women fought for a cause they believed in. They passed down their values to the next generation and informed them that our future comes first, so they must continue our storied history. They can be looked at as visionaries, seeing the future of the United States in the way they wanted and wanted us to look back on them and say exactly what we say about them today. They understood their place and contributed to a cause that was bigger than them: the history and the future of their country.

Today, we still have these people around. You do not see them every day, you may not even see them for a year, but when they return from fighting a war once again, you will look into the eyes of the only disciples from our "Greatest Generation." These men and women are trying to write another chapter in American history; they do not want that chapter to be the epilogue in a historic novel. They are fighting to preserve not only the future of our country, but to carry on where other generations left off: on top. Our founding fathers brought us together as a nation instead of separate colonies to fight bravely for our independence from a tyrannical leader. No less then fifty years later, we fought Great Britain once again and began to be seen as a world-shifting force. We even fought ourselves over what we believed was right and just. We fought the "world" and won, twice none the less. We have established ourselves as a great nation. A nation in which thousands of people flee to each year either from dictators like Fidel Castro in order to live a better life and share the American dream. Our history is vital to our reputation, good or bad, today, and for the respect we earn in almost every international ring around the world. For we are "the land of the free, and the home of the brave," and we should do everything we possibly can do keep it that way.

Our values were established on solid ground by some of the bravest men and women in our history. As we seem to digress from these today, we need to realize what our fallen soldiers fought for and why hundreds flee here to live a dream, the American dream. We need to value our history and learn from it for it is part of us and will remain with us forever. Making new history so that our grandchildren can be proud of what we did is important as well. Our impression on history is just as important as those before us.

Higher education in today's world is widely discussed to be on the downfall as opposed to what it used to be. Today we have on line websites that actually help and to a point encourage students to pay for plagiarized pre-written material at a lofty price, in turn cheating them of the education obtained by those who actually do their work. The article "At $9.95 a Page, You Expected Poetry?" Charles McGrath dives into these scamming websites and experiments with them to find out why students even use these sites. In the end, the conclusion as to why students use these sites is mind-boggling considering the quality of work they consist of. Today's students should take the initiative to succeed and gain a higher education that they can be proud of, not a cheating back door way to easy money and something they will soon to be ashamed of. Taking responsibility for oneself is the first step in improving higher education and it should be made right away.

Our greatest generation took pride in what they were apart of and took responsibility for not only themselves, but put this great country on their back and carried them through a time of turmoil. They came back from war time strong and provided one of the greatest decades in American history. Each one of them had their core values and the values of the whole country and everyone understood that. Today though, many people are rebelling against what was once an idealistic society to some, and that must be stopped. We have to bring back the values our greatest generation established.

The final thing we need to value, and value above all else, is the way we treat and act towards our family and friends. These are the people that will have the greatest impact on someone's life and putting a relationship in jeopardy by acting in an offensive way is just wrong. Most people who have a close relationship with their friends and family only need their support and love to succeed. In the end, when we all pass on, our material wealth goes to waste, although we seem to dedicate our entire lives to gaining these objects. The only thing we have is our family and friends and the people we have entrusted and touched throughout our lives when all is said and done. We need friends and family more than anything in this world and that should be something that is cherished by every individual.

In the article "Voting Democracy off the Island" by Francine Prose, she investigates how the popularity of unusual reality television shows reflects our society. In one paragraph she states: "If the truth is a millstone around one's neck, civility is likewise a hobble guarantee to slow us down. And why should we be polite when rudeness is so amusing, and when we all secretly know that the spectacle of exclusion and humiliation is the highest for of entertainment? (Prose 62)." Children and adults alike look for heroes and role models, with reality television being the mainstream money maker for networks; it seems that we'll have to turn to the American Idols and Survivors to find our future role models.

The problem in turning to these shows is the way the contestants treat the people competing along side them. It is blatantly obvious that Darwin's theory is becoming more prevalent in our society and people will stop at nothing to get an easy paycheck. Friends back stab each other, contestants fake family deaths without consideration of not only others, but the actual family member. How can we expect our next generation to learn what is right and acceptable if all they see is rudely acting and no talent wannabes cheating and whining on our television sets? Or is what is being portrayed on these shows becoming or even worse considered acceptable in our society today? Are we losing what we valued most decades ago or coming up with new values to be cherished?

Losing what our greatest generation gave us should be looked at in fear. They understood what needed to be done and did it without a complaint. They knew family and their country came first then they could worry about themselves. In today's world, like in reality TV (where it is most obvious) we only seem to care about ourselves, ignoring the feelings and values of other people. Our country is in for depressing shocks if we lose are values.

Our cultural values should not be cast away leaving us to rely on our ignorance and shameful values; we need to revive these values to what our past generations were dreaming of. Forget the short cut to everything, we need to respect or past and earn our way to a full, healthy, happy life through hard work and dedication. We need to bring back our "Greatest Generations" values of treating or family and friends correctly, value the future of higher education, and continue our rich history and cast off cheating, backstabbing, and laziness.