VIRAL ESSAY

My Parents’ Generation Let Me Down

They inherited prosperity and left a hopeless mess.

“I have fully lost faith in the leadership of my parents’ generation,” says Iraq War veteran and Penn State grad Thomas L. Day, who got the country’s attention over the weekend with a poignant Washington Post column that quickly spread across the Web. Day narrowly escaped being abused by Jerry Sandusky, but the failure is broader than Penn State. His parents’ generation inherited a world of boundless prosperity and opportunity and delivered a hopeless, dysfunctional mess, both socially and politically. “With the demise of my own community’s two most revered leaders, Sandusky and Joe Paterno, I have decided to continue to respect my elders, but to politely tell them, ‘Out of my way.’”