Perhaps we should forgive the current generation their shortcomings. I believe each generation's strengths are forged in the hardships they have endured. After our greatest tragedy, the great Civil War, Americans fulfilled their manifest destiny and became a world power. The "Greatest Generation" lived through the worst depression and the worst war to give years of untold peace and prosperity. A Cold War, nuclear threats, and Vietnam formed the boomers, leaving them less tempered by pain than their parents. They, in turn, have raised a generation with no true pain, or sorrows to harden them.