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Tom Brokaw

26 quotes

• “Finally, to the men and women whose stories I did not get to, I am genuinely sorry, for I have loved them all. I hope you will tell them in their own way. To those families and friends of other members of the greatest generation, may I suggest you now begin to ask the questions and hear the stories that have been locked in memory for too long.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is not surprising, I suppose, that the horrors of war give birth to a new generation of good Samaritans. Young men and women who have been so intensely exposed to such inhumanity often make a silent pledge that if they ever escape this dark world of death and injuries, this universe of cruelty, they will devote their lives to good works. Sometimes the pledge is a conscious thought. Sometimes it is a subconscious reaction to their experiences.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A new generation of Americans has a greater appreciation of what was involved on D-Day as a result of Steven Spielberg's stunning film Saving Private Ryan. For most younger Americans, D-Day has been a page or two in their history books, or some anniversary ceremony on television with a lot of white-haired men leaning into the winds coming off the English Channel as President Reagan or President Clinton praised their contributions. Saving Private Ryan, although a work of fiction, is true to the sound, the fury, the death, the terrible wounds of that day.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “After talking to so many of them and reflecting on what they have meant in my own life, I now know that it is in these small ceremonies and quiet moments that this generation is appropriately honored. No fanfare is required. They've had their parades. They've heard their speeches. They know what they have accomplished, and they are proud. They will have their World War II memorial and their place in the ledgers of history, but no block of marble or elaborate edifice can equal their lives of sacrifices and achievement, duty and honor, as monuments to their time.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “To the men and women of the greatest generation with gratitude and admiration”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “This is a book crafted by many memories, youthful insights, and the wisdom that come with seasons of despair and triumph. It is, most of all, another tribute to the men and women who rode the teacherous currents and sailed with the fair winds of most of the twentieth century.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “If we are to heed the past to prepare for the future, we should listen to these voices of a generation that speaks to us of duty and honor, sacrifice and accomplishment. I hope more of their stories will be preserved and cherished as reminders of all that we owe them and all that we can learn from them.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When I sent this book to my mother for her comments and corrections, she wrote back to say, "In some parts your ego is showing, bu mostly it's fine." Forty years after I left home for the last time, she still has my number.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “On those trips back to the Great Plains I always try to imagine the land before it was touched by rails and plows, fences and roads. I can still drive off the pavement of South Dakota highways, find a slight elevation in the prairie flatness, and look to a distant horizon, across untilled grassland, and with no barbed wire or telephone poles or dwellings to break the plane of earth and sky. It is at once majestic and intimidating. More than a century after the first white settlers began to arrive, the old Dakota Territory remains a place where nature rules.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The world in which I work and live is a long way from home, but the early bearings I took as a child on the prairie, surrounded by working people and the communities they established, often in difficult circumstances, have been a steadying and reassuring presence. They are familiar markers and sentinels, useful and reliable even now, forty years after I left the land and the people that launched me.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When I was a young man in the 1950s, right after World War II, there was a special category of hero everyone in America recognized: the men who wore the distinctive ribbon and star of the Medal of Honor. In those years when the legacy of war and sacrifice, bravery and humility was a touchstone in every community, the very mention of the Medal of Honor was part of the secular liturgy, an ideal to be honored and always remembered.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty (2003), by Peter Collier (text) & Nick Del Calzo (photographs), New York: Artisan, October 2006 second edition, p. x

• “When I first came to fully understand what effect members of the World War II generation had on my life and the world we occupy today, I quickly resolved to tell their stories as a small gesture of personal appreciation. As I did that on television, at dinner parties, and in commencement speeches, it had the effect of a chain letter that no one wanted to disrupt. Everyone seemed to want to share their own stories of parents, other family members, or acquaintences who were charter members of this remarkable generation. It rapidly became a kind of extended family, and with the encouragement of a number of friends I began to understand that this was a mother lode of material that deserved the permanence a book would represent. It was a daunting undertaking: because there are so many stories to tell and because the lives of these people are so special I didn't want to do anything in a book that would not live up to their deeds, heroic and otherwise. If I have failed them, it is entirely my fault.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels- all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified northern coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious. It will live forever as a stroke of enduring genius, a military maneuver that, even though it went awry and spilled ashore in chaos, succeeded. It was so risky that before he launched the invasion, gambling that the small break in the weather would hold, General Dwight Eisenhower personally wrote out a statement taking full responsibility for the failure if it occurred. He was grateful he never had to release it.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Hero" is a description tossed around lightly these days- like "star" or "celebrity"- another significant difference between the closing days of the twentieth century and the century's middle years, World War II. During the war the use of the phrase "You're a hero" was likely to bring on the quick rejoinder, "No, I'm not; I'm just doing my job here- like everyone else." The fighting men and women were so dependent on each other and shared so many common experiences they were embarrassed to be singled out. Some acts of heroism, however, were so breathtakingly conspicuous, so daring and vital to the military mission, they could not be overlooked or turned aside. In many instances they changed forever the lives of those who were decorated. Others who were decorated returned to the lives they would have had without the medal and the attention. If there is a common thread among the major medal winners, it is the same modesty expressed by Army nurse Mary Louise Roberts Wilson when she received the Silver Star. Almost to a person they have said to me, "I didn't win this medal. I merely accepted it for all the people who were with me." Nevertheless, they did win it, and the very qualities that led them to take great risks to save others served them well once they returned home.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “So Weinberger reported to MacArthur's headquarters in Brisbane, where he was a very junior officer on the staff of the legendary general. Nonetheless, he saw enough to have a full appreciation of MacArthur's brilliance. "I saw the plans for the invasion of Japan," Weinberger says. "The breadth and scope of MacArthur's brilliance. With very few troops, a couple of understrength divisions, and some Australian militia forces, he accomplished an enormous amount in the Pacific." The young intelligence officer also learned directly from MacArthur about judgment and decision making. Weinberger was on duty one night as American forces were moving on a small island, lightly occupied by the Japanese, to take it for a radio base. Suddenly, there were reports of a Japanese ship and Japanese aircraft in the vicinity. Weinberger thought he'd better take this information directly to MacArthur. "So I walked two blocks to his hotel," Weinberger remembers. "I got through the various security and gave him the message. He came out in his bathrobe, looking just as erect and imposing as he did in full uniform, that magnificent posture, deep voice. He looked the message over carefully and said, 'Well, Lieutenant, what do you think?' I said, 'General, I think it's a coincidence that they're there. They don't seem to have hostile intent. I would go ahead with the landing.' General MacArthur said, 'That's what I think, too. Good night.'" Weinberger walked back through the night to his post "in fear and trembling — to see if I was wrong or not. Fortunately, it worked out.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There it is again, the selfless response so characteristic of members of this generation, now coming into their twilight years. To be sure, they have gotten used to the better life, including the so-called entitlements such as Medicare, Social Security cost-of-living increases, and senior-citizen discounts- but they retain at the core of their being a strong sense of self-reliance and gratitude. There is a common theme of pride in all that they've accomplished for themselves, their families, and their country, and so little clamor for attention, given all they've done. The women and members of ethnic groups who were the objects of acute discrimination even as they served their country remember the hurt, but they have not allowed it to cripple them, nor have they invoked it as a claim for special treatment now. They're much more likely to talk about the gains that have been achieved rather than the pain they suffered. They have given the succeeding generations the opportunity to accumulate great economic wealth, political muscle, and the freedom from foreign oppression to make whatever choices they like. For those generations, the challenges are much different, but equally important.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is no world war to fight today nor any prospect of one anytime soon, but racial discrimination remains an American cancer. There is no Great Depression, but economic opportunity is an unending challenge, especially in a high-tech world where education is more important than ever. Most of all, there is the need to reinstate the concept of common welfare in America, so that the nation doesn't squander the legacy of this remarkable generation by becoming a collection of well-defined, narrowly-cast, special-interest fiefdoms, each concerned only with its own place in the mosaic. World War II and what came after was the result of a nation united, not a nation divided.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I am a child of the American men and women who grew up in the Great Depression, who came of age in World War II and then devoted their adult years to the building of modern America- the remarkable people I wrote about in The Greatest Generation. As I walked the beaches of Normandy on the fortieth and fiftieth anniversaries of D-Day, I first began to fully realize how they had shaped my life. They were my parents and the parents of my friends, teachers, ministers, physicians, and hometown merchants, the men and women who showed me the way through their own exacting standards of hard work, sacrifice, and personal responsibility. I began to understand how much I owed them.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When I set out to write The Greatest Generation, I was inspired by these people and by the realization that my world of endless possibilities, despite all its imperfections, was the work of these men and women. By writing their stories, I had finally found a way to say thank you. I wanted that book to be my gift to them, an expression of admiration for all they had achieved, and for the legacy they passed on to future generations. Of course, I hoped that the book would be well-received by the people about whom I was writing. As for younger generations, I wasn't sure what to expect. So many of the people I talked with from the World War II generation told me their kids weren't much interested in hearing about the Depression, the war, the sacrifices of the fifties. As for their grandchildren- a generation coming of age in a time of personal computers, digital video, and unprecedented prosperity- to them, stories about the Great Depression and World War II were like grainy black-and-white images in dusty schoolbooks or on late-night television. Wouldn't stories about people's lives during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s seem like ancient history to a thirtysomething or to a teenager shaping a life for America and the world in the twenty-first century? And so the enthusiastic response to The Greatest Generation has been not only a pleasant surprise, but also deeply gratifying in ways I could never have predicted. From what people say to me on the street and write in letters, some of which appear in this book, The Greatest Generation seems to have inspired within many families, communities, schools, and even corners of the political arena a reevaluation of the past, and a dialogue about the core values of that time and of the present.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “My favorite reaction to The Greatest Generation, however, is expressed to me in unexpected moments- on a ski slope, in the airport, on a street in New York, in the Pentagon. Men about my age- cops, business executives, military men, construction workers- grab my hand, look me in the eye, and say, "I read your book. Thank you for helping me understand my father." Then they turn and walk away. Any journalist would be flattered to have his or her work become a catalyst for reflection and examination, but I have no illusion about my personal role in all this. I was merely the reporter, the vehicle for people's stories and the lessons they contained. So many veterans said of their service during the war, "It was an honor," and I feel in turn it was an honor to have written about the people in that book.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “This has been a deeply satisfying personal journey for me. Reading the letters, hearing the stories, and sharing the emotional themes was a familial experience, intimate and nurturing. In this age of electronic communication overload, there is something reassuring and eloquent about a single voice speaking in direct, honest, and sometimes painful fashion about a passage when time was measured day by difficult day. In a time of conspicuous self-indulgence, it is comforting to be absorbed in the lives of others who are selfless and grateful for whatever they have. Even those who were unhappy with oversights in The Greatest Generation made their points quietly and respectfully.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Over the years, as I've shared stories of my South Dakota boyhood and family history, friends have often said, "When are you going to write that in a book?", an idea I have successfully resisted until now. I worried that such a book could be seen as simply an exercise in vanity, rather than as what I hoped it would be, an attempt to document the manner in which I was raised in the America of the post-World War II years. I wanted to get beyond an anchorman's inflated sense of self-importance (an oxymoron?) and express my gratitude to the people who raised me, and to the character of life in the American heartland from which I have drawn so much. In any case, this is a book about my life until the age of twenty-two, when I left South Dakota. One of the perils of embarking on such a book is that the prism through which you have looked back on your own life gives off a certain rosy tint. I have tried to avoid that, but it is also true that I grew up as a congenital optimist at a time when everything seemed possible in America, especially for a white male, and among people accustomed to difficult challenges, hard work, and productive results. I am also aware that I happened to be born in the right place at the right time, and to the right set of parents, who did not limit my dreams of a different kind of life.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In 1962, I put my home state of South Dakota in a rearview mirror and drove away. I was uncertain of my final destinatin but determined to get well beyond the slow rhythms of life in the small towns and rural culture of the Great Plains. I thought that the influences of the people, the land, and the time during my first twenty-two years of life were part of the past. But gradually I came to know how much they meant to my future, and so I have returned often as part of a long pilgrimage of renewal. When I do return, my wardrobe and home address are New York, my job is high-profile, and my bank account is secure, but when I enter a South Dakota cafe or stop for gas, I am just someone who grew up around here, left a while back, and never really answers when he's asked, "When you gonna move back home?" I am caught in that place all too familiar to small-state natives who have moved on to a rewarding life in larger arenas: I don't want to move back, but in a way I never want to leave. I am nourished by every visit.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is not lost on me that all of my good fortune in life and my career would have been neutralized at the outset if my skin had been a few shades darker. I would not have gotten that first job in Omaha or the second one in Atlanta two and a half years later. There were no people of color working in the newsrooms of either city in the early and mid-1960s. In the network newsrooms, where the battle for civil rights was the defining issue in the early days of Huntley-Brinkley and Walter Cronkite, racial diversity was at best a notion. When America first began to seriously confront racial inequalities in the sixties, mobilized by the courage and eloquence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his equally brave and determined followers, I naively believed we would cure the cancerous effects of racism in my lifetime. I now know that is not true. Race remains a central issue in the evolution of our political, economic, and cultural environment. It continues to haunt me personally; I am grateful that my formative years in the mostly white environment of the upper Midwest sharpened my sensibilities about the inequities and complexities of race for the rest of my life.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “On the morning of September 11, 2001, I could see great black clouds of smoke rising into the late-summer sky shortly after the first airliner hit the World Trade Center. I was dressing hurriedly, having been summoned to my office to cover what we initially thought was a small plane accident. It was not, of course. For the next two weeks I would return home late at night and stare numbly south to a skyline now framed by the sulfurous glow rising from lower Manhattan, where powerful work lights illuminated the site of the attack. The attack and all of its consequences had taken over my professional life and profoundly affected my personal compass. After residing in New York for more than a quarter of a century, and becoming deeply involved in the longitude and latitude of city life, I had begun to take my attachment to the city for granted. After September 11, I could feel a visceral bonding with my adopted home. The events of September 11 were also a reminder of the innocence of my childhood in South Dakota in the forties and fifties. I have taken to saying that when I was a young man and thinking I might want to become a journalist, I used to worry that all of the big events had already happened. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated during my first year in a newsroom, my naivete was shattered, and for the next forty years I have been a traveler on a landscape of great, wrenching change.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I have learned from the MOH recipients invaluable and common lessons. They have an enduring humility about their heroic acts, almost always saying, "I'd rather talk about my buddy who didn't come back." They represent the fundamental fabric of America ethnically, geographically, and economically. They come in all sizes. My friend Jack Jacobs, a Vietnam-era MOH recipient, is a bantamweight. The late Joe Foss looked as if he could be a middle linebacker until the day he died in his mid-eighties. Bob Bush lost an eye on Okinawa, but he sees reality twice as well as anyone I know. Over the years I've been privileged to attend any number of big deals, from presidential summits to state dinners to royal weddings, World Series, Super Bowls, and Broadway openings, but nothing means as much to me as the time I've spent with the Medal of Honor recipients, many of whom you will read about in this book. They always make me laugh, make me cry, and, most of all, make me proud that we're fellow citizens.”

  Tom Brokaw (born 1940) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty (2003), by Peter Collier (text) & Nick Del Calzo (photographs), New York: Artisan, October 2006 second edition, p. xi