CAUTION MOVIE SPOILER AHEAD!

I got to thinking the other morning after one of my it's-the-middle-of-the-night-and-I-can't-sleep moments. I got up and watched the movie "Skyline" that came out in 2010. Very good movie by the way, I highly recommend it!

The basic premise of the movie is how a group of young hipsters struggles for survival after aliens attack the Los Angeles area. It becomes evident that winning the war is not likely especially after the military nukes one of the mother ships with no lingering after-effects.

As I was watching the final credits, I started to wonder about the generational differences in dealing with that pivotal moment when it's obvious that you're all going to die and your choices have boiled down to either fighting to the end or hunkering down to stay alive as long as possible.

The "greatest generation" had such an event to deal with in terms of World War II. We all know how that turned out. Everybody made the necessary sacrifices to support the war effort both at home and on the front lines. We will win, no matter what it takes. Fight to the last man!

The baby-boomers, generations X, Y, and Z (are we to Z yet?) never have had to face anything remotely similar, as life has been good, great even, since the mid-40's. Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars and 9-11 have been mere speed bumps in relation to WWII. (I'm not trying to minimize, however, the sacrifices made in those events by those who served and those who gave up their lives to ensure the freedoms we enjoy today.)

In the movie, the action closes with the aliens continuing to rampage across the countryside while the surviving young hipsters continue against the odds to fight to the end. When that pivotal moment comes for us (God forbid that it happens in our lifetimes) whether it's war, alien attack, worldwide pandemic, supervolcano, or whatever, what will we do?

Too much Hollywood rewriting of history I'm afraid. Sorry to burst your bubble. There was such as a thing as the lost division. Even the history of the TV show 'Band of Brothers' was incorrect, as most of them would have actually died in 1943 (would never have made it to Normandy, the remainder getting killed on the first day) during the invasion of Sicily, killed by there own side (shot out of the sky) under the command of a fellow called Westmorland (the guy who went on to run the effort in the Vietnam War). And the US invasion of Normandy was less than half of the allied force size, although from the film 'Saving Private Ryan', you would never know.

Hopefully Generation Z won't be duped into further wars (enterprises for politicians and scoundrels). As Samuel Johnson once said 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'.



What ever it takes by hopefully thinking for yourself and not following the crowd like a lemming.

Try the movie called the 'The hill ', a story of a man (Sean Connery character) who wouldn't fight to the last man.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

Take away all the toys (cars and electronics) of the current teenagers' and somewhat older 'adults' and they will probably just commit suicide before the aliens ever get there.

Sue

On death ground, fight. [Apologies to Sun Tzu.]

If death is inevitable, try to at least make them remember you. Alamo. Masada.

Oh, I think I know this one: the germs will get the aliens.

What's with this fear of invasion? This seems to be a fairly recent thing. In the old movies the aliens are often symbolic in someway: perhaps the human potential for the good, perhaps utopia. Now aliens, for all their technological superiorities, are portrayed as these savages bent on the destruction of mankind.

I also noticed people worrying about real invasions. They tend to say that American gun ownership will solve the problem. Somehow they forget that we have the most powerful military in the world. Some home defense rifles won't work as well as those billions of dollars we've been pouring into the military, or so I hope.

Is it because society has evolved so much that the individual no longer feels he has any contribution to make? Before, if your typewriter breaks, you stand a chance of fixing it if you're handy with a screwdriver. Now if your laptop screen cracks in half, the only thing to do is to buy a new computer. Likewise, individual valor can't do as much as nuclear bombs. Have we become really small, insignificant people, through no fault of our own? Is this what bugs people?


Da Bing

I think we haven't had a Real Good invasion on our hands since mexico decided to Exploit us,some 20 odd yrs ago,lol!

Big wars skip generations for a reason. The soldiers who fight in a big war and live through it know that peace and reaching a truce is always a better answer than war, and by and large, the veteran's children who grow up during the war or just after the war also realize this. It takes another generation or two to forget how horrible war really is.

And I'm not talking about "little wars" like the Mexican War, or Vietnam, or Iraq. I'm talking about big wars where the entire population and the entire GDP output of a major nation is directed at war fighting. For the United States, these would be the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II.

There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a big war in the 21st century. It will only come after the old soldiers of WWII have passed away and most if not all of their children have died too. With the memory of a big war long gone, some new cause will arise that just begs to be fixed by a big war.

With no one to espouse first hand just how bad war is, the politicians will be all for it, the press will promote it, the middle aged taxpayers will gladly pay for it, and young people will gladly, and willingly fight it and die in it. In the end, the cycle will repeat over and over again. It's what we do.

The younger generations (fill in whatever age groups fall below your own) are what we teach them to be. they can be great or they can be spoiled. It has always been up to their parents and leaders to teach them how to be. I have personally seen the "younger generation" in action over the years and I have seen most of them respond well to good leadership and make the commitments and sacrifices necessary for the situations they found themselves in. The "greatest generation" responded to the crisis at hand, and not all responded well. At the beginning of WWII the nation was very split over whether to not get involved in European affairs, and some actually wanted to take Germany's side. Human nature does not change much over the generations, they handle the environment and situation they are dealt, many people will exhibit good character traits and many will be selfish and greedy. That happened in WWII, and it happens now. The "greatest generation" had the greatest challenge, but they were not that different from us, just different experiences.

World War II-scale conventional warfare was rendered obsolete by nuclear arsenals.

Individuals today are no less committed to freedom and survival than the WWII generation was. I'm sure our troops are no less brave.

The threats today are different and occur in a different context.

When disasters happen, man-made or natural, we'll deal with them.