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 daedalus wrote:


Maybe the military needs to take a step back and figure out why only the people who can't tie their own shoelaces are falling into it? I assure you, you can find intelligent young people. I think you're seeing a marketing/recruiting issue, not a generational one.

I'd suggest:

1. The Poor Bloody Infantry (Bless Their Woolen Socks) are, let's be realistic, unskilled laborers. By the nature of the job they have the highest turn-over, highest exposure to danger and are generally held in contempt by everyone they come in contact with during the execution of their duties - rarely if ever to make someone's life better in any way. Nontheless, i'll personally float any infantryman at least one beer/refreshment on principle, because they're the most consistently important component of defending the realm at home and abroad.
2. Everyone else requires one or more of the following:
a. Management Capacity - i.e. officers
b. Technical Capacity - i.e. gunners/mechanics/radar ops/etc
c. Magnificent Bastardry - i.e. Quartermaster, Senior Officers
d. Competition level lying skills - Senior Officers, Quartermasters, Procurement liaisons

Each and every one of which can be rewarded more highly in the private sector, in some cases in more agreeable climates.

So why exactly would someone who can do better work for
A. HM government of the aircraft carrier which has no aircraft to carry
B. His Excellency Emmanuel Macron
C. Donald Trump, Leader of the Free World
D. Etc.

When the defense of their home and all they hold dear is better served by accumulating vast amounts of money doing a more rewarding job with the same or less levels of stress, and relocating to, say, Switzerland?

The effect of Communism which meant 'being as far away from Russia as possible' was valuable doesn't really apply any more. DEFEND THE HOMELAND!(tm) isn't relevant since most people have moved house/jobs/families enough times that a sense of having something _static_ that can be defended that existed in the olden days has gone. "All the enemies are over there and we can't let them come here" died in 2001 so that doesn't apply.

As for the OP; I'd suggest Vietnam could only happen when Vietnam happened:
1. The Evil Empire was a "thing"
2. The president hadn't been outed as a spy, a liar and a crook, and directly comparable to the hyped up 'evil' of the Evil Empire
3. Air interdiction and long range missiles hadn't developed to what they are today
4. Drones didn't exist in their current combat capacity
5. The handling of Veterans Affairs wasn't recognised as a national tragedy
6. Culture was fairly polarised into extremes, e.g. Hippies, Rock&Rollers, whatever the straight edge folks called themselves back then and could be addressed and managed as blocks.

Whereas now:
1. Death to... erm. I was going to say Kale but someone would come out of the woodwork to support it. The only universally ( by which I mean at least 90%+ population) acceptable target for outrage these days are those crazy nazis
2. Donald Trump
3. America Sees All, when it can be bothered.
4. A chap in Steubenville Ohio can launch a drone strike to kill you and everyone you know between coffee breaks without any risk to himself
5. I won't mock this, it's bad enough
6. Death To Kale!

 Dreadwinter wrote:

So let me get this straight, you work in a top secret underground facility and you guys staff it with people who apparently need babysit constantly?
lol k

It's hardly secret. But it is underground. And, NORMALLY no. Most of the people down here are fairly competent, though I could say a few things about some of management's decisions.

These guys were through a subcontractor with the option to hire. WE didn't pick them, they came as a group.

daedalus wrote:
Maybe the military needs to take a step back and figure out why only the people who can't tie their own shoelaces are falling into it? I assure you, you can find intelligent young people. I think you're seeing a marketing/recruiting issue, not a generational one.

I work for the civilian side of your government.

Ouze wrote:
I can't see why it would be hard to talk young people into signing up for a job that could entail being deployed to fight one of several meaningless conflicts in which nothing worthwhile happens, destroying your physical and mental health in the process, possibly losing your life, all the while earning mediocre pay and a lifetime of substandard healthcare.

See above.

nareik wrote:Guy sounds like a dangerous pyromaniac. Did he have nothing in his history that red flagged this?

No, just stupid. Big Sign: NO SMOKING, SILVER NITRATE FILM! what's he do? Light up. Surrounded by 10 THOUSAND silver nitrate reels. Never mind that smoking inside the facility is prohibited and the sign is there to meet safety requirements. Never mind that day one they show you a safety film that shows a reel of this stuff BURNING UNDERWATER.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

nareik wrote:Guy sounds like a dangerous pyromaniac. Did he have nothing in his history that red flagged this?

No, just stupid. Big Sign: NO SMOKING, SILVER NITRATE FILM! what's he do? Light up. Surrounded by 10 THOUSAND silver nitrate reels. Never mind that smoking inside the facility is prohibited and the sign is there to meet safety requirements. Never mind that day one they show you a safety film that shows a reel of this stuff BURNING UNDERWATER.

Wow, well I guess we just gotta admire this guy's American, libertarian spirit and refusal to allow authoritarians to micromanage the minor details of his life. Maybe not perfect material for the job though.

Didn't 'try to set the place on fire' he 'could have set the place on fire without trying' perhaps a more apt description?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

daedalus wrote:
Maybe the military needs to take a step back and figure out why only the people who can't tie their own shoelaces are falling into it? I assure you, you can find intelligent young people. I think you're seeing a marketing/recruiting issue, not a generational one.

I work for the civilian side of your government.

Well then, we go back to my previous comment about how even the FBI and NSA are having issues getting the people they want.

Meanwhile, google, apple, and other tech companies have a tendency to discriminate against "old people" and their stock prices rise and rise. Private sector works means getting the best prescriptions, and the .gov is waaaaay too uptight to work for.

 daedalus wrote:
Private sector works means getting the best prescriptions, and the .gov is waaaaay too uptight to work for.

I dunno, the last time the US smoked a lot of good weed, they bombed Hanoi. Apple they just put out updates to destroy your iphone so you have to buy a new one.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

So let me get this straight, you work in a top secret underground facility and you guys staff it with people who apparently need babysit constantly?
lol k

It's hardly secret. But it is underground. And, NORMALLY no. Most of the people down here are fairly competent, though I could say a few things about some of management's decisions.

These guys were through a subcontractor with the option to hire. WE didn't pick them, they came as a group.

daedalus wrote:
Maybe the military needs to take a step back and figure out why only the people who can't tie their own shoelaces are falling into it? I assure you, you can find intelligent young people. I think you're seeing a marketing/recruiting issue, not a generational one.

I work for the civilian side of your government.

Ouze wrote:
I can't see why it would be hard to talk young people into signing up for a job that could entail being deployed to fight one of several meaningless conflicts in which nothing worthwhile happens, destroying your physical and mental health in the process, possibly losing your life, all the while earning mediocre pay and a lifetime of substandard healthcare.

See above.

nareik wrote:Guy sounds like a dangerous pyromaniac. Did he have nothing in his history that red flagged this?

No, just stupid. Big Sign: NO SMOKING, SILVER NITRATE FILM! what's he do? Light up. Surrounded by 10 THOUSAND silver nitrate reels. Never mind that smoking inside the facility is prohibited and the sign is there to meet safety requirements. Never mind that day one they show you a safety film that shows a reel of this stuff BURNING UNDERWATER.

So your opinion on the value of millennials to the military is based on the actions of some people who were working for a civilian subcontractor, so are probably paying them the square root of sweet FA and sending of any bodies that are still warm so they can keep on scraping the pork barrel (which is my experience of private subcontractors on government contracts. Politicians don't seem be able to understand that if the largest employer in the country can't do a job cheaper it's unlikely a smaller contractor can without cutting something. Either pay, benefits or rights, which does not tend to draw the cream of the crop)

Maybe the reason Millenials have so much problems in the voluntary military is because the percentage of Millenials with university degrees and high end schooling is much bigger than before, so the percentage that enters the military is more commonly from the low end?

I don't know how it works in USA, but in Spain, the kind of guy that with 15-16 years wants to join the military/Police is the one that probably has repeat some times and don't has the... higgest notes of his class. Extra points if he consumes some kind of drugs.

Our military is actually made of better educated kids (or at least more kids with post-high school degrees) than at any other time in history. You need a waiver to get in without a HS degree, and many kids come in and take advantage of tuition assistance programs in the service to take college classes while on active duty. Many kids come in with associate's degrees or even bachelor's degrees.

 CptJake wrote:
Our military is actually made of better educated kids (or at least more kids with post-high school degrees) than at any other time in history. You need a waiver to get in without a HS degree, and many kids come in and take advantage of tuition assistance programs in the service to take college classes while on active duty. Many kids come in with associate's degrees or even bachelor's degrees.

Also a significant portion didn't join under the "jail or the Corps" plan that was common in Dad's era.

Marine Corps, putting the penal in penal legion back in the 1950s...

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

So let me get this straight, you work in a top secret underground facility and you guys staff it with people who apparently need babysit constantly?
lol k

It's hardly secret. But it is underground. And, NORMALLY no. Most of the people down here are fairly competent, though I could say a few things about some of management's decisions.

These guys were through a subcontractor with the option to hire. WE didn't pick them, they came as a group.

daedalus wrote:
Maybe the military needs to take a step back and figure out why only the people who can't tie their own shoelaces are falling into it? I assure you, you can find intelligent young people. I think you're seeing a marketing/recruiting issue, not a generational one.

I work for the civilian side of your government.

Ouze wrote:
I can't see why it would be hard to talk young people into signing up for a job that could entail being deployed to fight one of several meaningless conflicts in which nothing worthwhile happens, destroying your physical and mental health in the process, possibly losing your life, all the while earning mediocre pay and a lifetime of substandard healthcare.

See above.

nareik wrote:Guy sounds like a dangerous pyromaniac. Did he have nothing in his history that red flagged this?

No, just stupid. Big Sign: NO SMOKING, SILVER NITRATE FILM! what's he do? Light up. Surrounded by 10 THOUSAND silver nitrate reels. Never mind that smoking inside the facility is prohibited and the sign is there to meet safety requirements. Never mind that day one they show you a safety film that shows a reel of this stuff BURNING UNDERWATER.

This really sounds like a failure by your bosses, not the people being hired. They are clearly not qualified for the position, based on what you are saying. But they are still being brought in. Maybe, I dunno, your bosses should address that issue?

But millenials are the problem here! Gr!

 Dreadwinter wrote:

This really sounds like a failure by your bosses, not the people being hired. They are clearly not qualified for the position, based on what you are saying. But they are still being brought in. Maybe, I dunno, your bosses should address that issue?

But millenials are the problem here! Gr!

No, the problem, per se, is that no matter who much we scream we need more people, we're idiots and liars and it takes an outside contractor to study the issue. And the previous outside contractors who studied it, at 3 million dollars a pop, are also liars and idiots that foolishly agreed with our assessment.

The contractor shenanigans came from them hiring anyone who could pass a piss test and a background check, regardless of what the boss thought, until they screwed up on site.

 Steve steveson wrote:

So your opinion on the value of millennials to the military is based on the actions of some people who were working for a civilian subcontractor, so are probably paying them the square root of sweet FA and sending of any bodies that are still warm so they can keep on scraping the pork barrel (which is my experience of private subcontractors on government contracts. Politicians don't seem be able to understand that if the largest employer in the country can't do a job cheaper it's unlikely a smaller contractor can without cutting something. Either pay, benefits or rights, which does not tend to draw the cream of the crop)

Let's start at the top on this post:

We have 30 employees at this point. Mostly due to death or retirement, though we've had to let people go for returning to active duty or transferring to OPM.

We need 100 more people then we currently have, in order to complete the project in the next two decades.

Our contractors get better bennies then I do and don't have to pay for them out of their paycheck. The people who write the checks for these contractors deliberately try to make it cost as much as possible to justify their budgets, and so they get the same amount next year. It's not cheaper, it's actually more expensive, and it's that way by design.

And, since you must have missed this: I started talking about this as I had seen the same thing on the civilian side that the US military guys here were talking about.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
Our military is actually made of better educated kids (or at least more kids with post-high school degrees) than at any other time in history. You need a waiver to get in without a HS degree, and many kids come in and take advantage of tuition assistance programs in the service to take college classes while on active duty. Many kids come in with associate's degrees or even bachelor's degrees.

But it does not mean they have the least bit of common sense. One guy we were glad to see the back of was ex airforce (insert chairforce jokes here), and was constantly in trouble for harassing people. He departed after he startled one of the old ladies so badly she had to be taken out by ambulance.

djones520 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
Maybe the military needs to take a step back and figure out why only the people who can't tie their own shoelaces are falling into it? I assure you, you can find intelligent young people. I think you're seeing a marketing/recruiting issue, not a generational one.

I can't see why it would be hard to talk young people into signing up for a job that could entail being deployed to fight one of several meaningless conflicts in which nothing worthwhile happens, destroying your physical and mental health in the process, possibly losing your life, all the while earning mediocre pay and a lifetime of substandard healthcare.

Well... maybe because that's not how it is at all?

CptJake wrote:Our military is actually made of better educated kids (or at least more kids with post-high school degrees) than at any other time in history. You need a waiver to get in without a HS degree, and many kids come in and take advantage of tuition assistance programs in the service to take college classes while on active duty. Many kids come in with associate's degrees or even bachelor's degrees.

How Goddamn DARE you two try to sway the liberal propaganda machine with facts. I got tickled pink when I got back at someone telling me what life was like now in Baghdad, which is where I served.

TIL serving in the military pays well, has decent healthcare, and carries no personal risk to either your physical or mental health, and the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq were totally worthwhile. I'm sure the next time a thread similar to this comes up we'll all be on the same page about those things and I will make sure all of my friends who served know they are just parroting liberal talking points if they claim otherwise.

 Ouze wrote:
TIL serving in the military pays well,

When I got active duty E-4 pay, I was bringing home $1,500-$1,700 every two weeks. That's in a laborer rank, not E-5 or higher, which tends to be where you end up in less than 8 years if you do it right.

 Ouze wrote:
has decent healthcare,

Tricare, which I use right now, is better insurance than I have a Caterpillar. I've not come across too many insurances within the employers around me that can compare to it.

 Ouze wrote:
and carries no personal risk to either your physical or mental health,

Being a fry cook has personal risk to your physical and mental health. I'd argue that EVERY job does to either one or the other. Not to the degree of combat, but then again we don't spend every second of our military careers in combat.

 Ouze wrote:
and the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq were totally worthwhile.

Subjective, but seeing the lives of Iraqis firsthand that were improved solely by Saddam's regime not continuing to slaughter them, I'd say it WAS worthwhile. Afghanistan? You'd have to ask someone who was there.

 Ouze wrote:
I'm sure the next time a thread similar to this comes up we'll all be on the same page about those things and I will make sure all of my friends who served know they are just parroting liberal talking points if they claim otherwise.

I have no doubt that will be the case.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
TIL serving in the military pays well,

When I got active duty E-4 pay, I was bringing home $1,500-$1,700 every two weeks. That's in a laborer rank, not E-5 or higher, which tends to be where you end up in less than 8 years if you do it right.

That in total benefits, or salary alone?

 Just Tony wrote:


Subjective, but seeing the lives of Iraqis firsthand that were improved solely by Saddam's regime not continuing to slaughter them, I'd say it WAS worthwhile..

And if you ask the people being slaughtered by ISIS because of the power vacuum?

 Just Tony wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
and the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq were totally worthwhile.

Subjective, but seeing the lives of Iraqis firsthand that were improved solely by Saddam's regime not continuing to slaughter them, I'd say it WAS worthwhile. Afghanistan? You'd have to ask someone who was there.

Very subjective. I get mixed reports from the Arabs and Kurds I spend time with in Iraq and I'm there as a civilian with no military entourage at all, so I like to think we get pretty unfiltered and honest opinions (though of course I'm still a westerner and there can be a clear difference in what people say depending on whether our US collegues are with us or not and I'll bet the Europeans get different chat when me and the other Brit aren't there, too, so there's obviously still some distinctions in levels of openess depending on audience, as you'd expect).

 Just Tony wrote:
When I got active duty E-4 pay, I was bringing home $1,500-$1,700 every two weeks. That's in a laborer rank, not E-5 or higher, which tends to be where you end up in less than 8 years if you do it right.

So, the same money as someone making $20/hour at a job with a 40 hour work week, but with the government controlling your life outside of your "on the clock" hours and a much higher chance of death than the average office job. Yeah, that's better than working minimum wage at walmart, but that's pretty underwhelming compared to even entry-level jobs for college graduates. So who do you think you're going to get at that rate: the best of the best, who are taking a major pay cut out of sheer desire to join the military, or the people who have limited career options and are desperate for something that pays enough to live off of?

 Just Tony wrote:

Being a fry cook has personal risk to your physical and mental health. I'd argue that EVERY job does to either one or the other. Not to the degree of combat, but then again we don't spend every second of our military careers in combat.

Fry cooks generally don't spend even one second of their culinary endeveaours in combat.

Obviously you've never worked in a kitchen.

I'd suggest:

1. The Poor Bloody Infantry (Bless Their Woolen Socks) are, let's be realistic, unskilled laborers. By the nature of the job they have the highest turn-over, highest exposure to danger and are generally held in contempt by everyone they come in contact with during the execution of their duties - rarely if ever to make someone's life better in any way. Nontheless, i'll personally float any infantryman at least one beer/refreshment on principle, because they're the most consistently important component of defending the realm at home and abroad.

This might be the most laughable post I've seen in this thread.

The modern infantrymen of the US is probably more highly trained than a number of positions. They are from unskilled. No one holds them in contempt within the military. People might pity them, but I've never met anyone (veteran, active, civilian) that actually holds them in contempt.

Also, the majority of people I know who went infantry or had previously served as such were actually more articulate and better educated than the average unskilled laborer by a pretty wide margin. No one just falls into that anymore. A lot of people actually go infantry because they are actually patriotic or, in some cases, just want to see real combat.

Things like supply/admin/transportation are where people tend to fall into because they didn't score high enough on the ASVAB for something better or didn't want to go combat arms.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
When I got active duty E-4 pay, I was bringing home $1,500-$1,700 every two weeks. That's in a laborer rank, not E-5 or higher, which tends to be where you end up in less than 8 years if you do it right.

So, the same money as someone making $20/hour at a job with a 40 hour work week, but with the government controlling your life outside of your "on the clock" hours and a much higher chance of death than the average office job. Yeah, that's better than working minimum wage at walmart, but that's pretty underwhelming compared to even entry-level jobs for college graduates. So who do you think you're going to get at that rate: the best of the best, who are taking a major pay cut out of sheer desire to join the military, or the people who have limited career options and are desperate for something that pays enough to live off of?

They also pay your rent.

And at least in theory cover your food costs.

Let's get off the work qualifications of the military shall we. That's a screaming politics topic and has no place in this forum. Now back to complaining about kids these days!

My slacker daughter's Anthropology Prof has a handlebar moustache. :-)

 Bromsy wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
When I got active duty E-4 pay, I was bringing home $1,500-$1,700 every two weeks. That's in a laborer rank, not E-5 or higher, which tends to be where you end up in less than 8 years if you do it right.

So, the same money as someone making $20/hour at a job with a 40 hour work week, but with the government controlling your life outside of your "on the clock" hours and a much higher chance of death than the average office job. Yeah, that's better than working minimum wage at walmart, but that's pretty underwhelming compared to even entry-level jobs for college graduates. So who do you think you're going to get at that rate: the best of the best, who are taking a major pay cut out of sheer desire to join the military, or the people who have limited career options and are desperate for something that pays enough to live off of?

They also pay your rent.

And at least in theory cover your food costs.

If you can call MREs food. Mess halls aren't bad by any means. A little bland perhaps. You would have to supplement your diet somewhat if you got into weightlifting while enlisted.

You can realistically hit E4 by 20. Assuming you're of moderate intelligence and work ethic. If you enlist in the Army with a college degree you go in as a E4 (specialist, not a corporal). In that case you would be making just under 26k a year. Second lieutenants make a little over 32k a year. It's not an unreasonable salary.

And if you actually go in without a degree and then get your degree done on benefits than you gained a lot more than you could have possibly done working an unskilled civilian job at 18.

Also the ASVAB minimum score would suggest that at the least the military is turning away 20-30% of potential enlistees. I think it's been a few years since you could get an ASVAB or felony waiver.

There gak bags in the military, but the idea that it's drawing from the dregs is blatantly false.

E-6 at 15.5 years. $3751 a month.
BAH, Basic Allowance for Housing, $1550 a month.
BAS, Basic Allowance for Subsitance, $370 a month.
SDAP, Special Duty Assignment Pay, $225 a month.

100% Medical insurance for myself and my family.
100% Dental insurance for myself, partial for my family.

$70,700 a year, in pure money. The medical and dental on top of that... probably clearing $80,000 a year.

I consider that reasonable pay. When I deploy, as I am now, I get other monetary incentives to sweeten the pot. This current deployment, I'm getting an extra $375 a month. If I were in a combat zone, it would average out to about $700 a month.

I've spoken many times here about a lot of the negatives that come with military service. I would not call our pay one of them. Say what you want about G.W., but he made great efforts in getting our pay onto a respectable level after the debacle of the 90's.

 djones520 wrote:
E-6 at 15.5 years. $3751 a month.
BAH, Basic Allowance for Housing, $1550 a month.
BAS, Basic Allowance for Subsitance, $370 a month.
SDAP, Special Duty Assignment Pay, $225 a month.

100% Medical insurance for myself and my family.
100% Dental insurance for myself, partial for my family.

$70,700 a year, in pure money. The medical and dental on top of that... probably clearing $80,000 a year.

I consider that reasonable pay. When I deploy, as I am now, I get other monetary incentives to sweeten the pot. This current deployment, I'm getting an extra $375 a month. If I were in a combat zone, it would average out to about $700 a month.

I've spoken many times here about a lot of the negatives that come with military service. I would not call our pay one of them. Say what you want about G.W., but he made great efforts in getting our pay onto a respectable level after the debacle of the 90's.

To add to that:

- BAH & BAS does not get taxed.
- Depending on your state, active duty pay can be tax free.

Military pay cannot be compared to civilian pay simply by going "gross-military pay" vs "gross-civilian pay". I'm about to switch over to military pay, and comparing my current gross to my new gross, I'll be taking a $10,000+ cut in pay.

But looking at the big picture:

- I'll no longer pay $7,000 a year in health insurance, dental, vision.
- I won't pay federal taxes on close to $20,000 of my income.
- I won't pay any Oklahoma taxes on any of my income.
- My wife will pay fewer taxes because our taxable household income puts is in a much lower tax bracket.

So my $10,000+ cut in gross pay will actually result in a higher net pay for me.

And since I already have my education, as my student loans show, I'll pass 2 years of free college each to my two daughters.

The problem with comparing private pay to government pay is that private companies are so different.

I work for a small defense contractor in the DMV area and get paid more than 60k a year, while having full benefits for me and my family that are provided free of charge, and a 5% deposit to my IRA that isn't a match but rather a pledge - they essentially pay me an extra >3000/year that has to go to an IRA.

So essentially the only things that come out of my >5k per month are taxes; everything else I get from the company for no cost for me and my family.

I got hired two and some change months ago, so definitely entry level, and don't even have my clearance yet, at which point my salary will go up.

The other neat thing about this job is they pay for a lot of my hobby things as well (as I am on the wargaming team) and gave me a sign on bonus. So woo private contractors!

Well, let me give you some advice here, so you don't lose that sweet gig. (It does sound sweet)

- Don't try to flush a t-shirt down the toilet
- Fire bad. Fire no no.
- Don't steal sensitive documents.

From what I understand from the thread, these are common rookie mistakes. Good luck!

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well, let me give you some advice here, so you don't lose that sweet gig. (It does sound sweet)

- Don't try to flush a t-shirt down the toilet
- Fire bad. Fire no no.
- Don't steal sensitive documents.

From what I understand from the thread, these are common rookie mistakes. Good luck!

My job has a outsized number of millennials, and if I had a nickel for every time one of those things happened, I wouldn't have anything because they're all really smart.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If millennials really suck so much, isn't it the fault of the previous generation for raising them so poorly?

Ah, the blame game!

I'm not really sure that's the issue. I mean, I grant how my parents tried to raise me is now called child endangerment, neglect, and abuse, but it did work.

Uhm, not sure if you are aware but the blame game started quite a while ago with millenials being blamed for everything (and still are). To pretend I was starting it up is willful ignorance at best. Which, come to think of it, goes to support the point I was making.

Well so was the baby boomers before that.

Cant we all just agree that everyone is terrible.