Everyone’s familiar with Tom Brokaw’s publications that idealize the proverbial “greatest generation,” referencing the generation of Americans who won the second world war, reshaped the world’s political order, built the American middle class, laid the interstate highway system, integrated our schools, passed the civil rights act, challenged us to put a man on the moon and to build a great society, all while generating untold sums of wealth and making America the economic envy of the world.