Silent and Incredible

By Peder von Harten

Ihaven’t seen all of the generations, but I know that as each year passes, many more from what is perhaps America’s greatest generation will no longer be with us and gone with them are the stories from the iconic, nation-forging moments that have defined our journey from life in black and white to life lived streamed, searched, connected, and in full living color.

For the majority of our readers, this means our parents and their friends. For a fair share of our readers still, this means you. And for the paths you’ve walked and the legacies you leave behind you, you are owed a great standing ovation. What you’ve seen, endured, and accomplished over the past 80-90 years in our (still very young) country is nothing short of amazing. To me, you are “Generation Incredible” and while the humble nature that defines the generation precludes you from acknowledging the greatness that lies within, the accomplishments speak for themselves.

Time, the most prominent publication for the bulk of the 20th century coined the term, “Silent Generation” as a moniker for anyone who was born from the end of the Great Depression and through the end of World War II—some 17 very important years in our history. The “silent” adjective stems from the notion that the generation was markedly quiet, reserved, and uncertain given the uneasy period of time they were born into. Following the end of the Depression, Americans held tight to what they had—their families, their faith, and the little bit of money they had coming out of one of the worst economic periods in our history. It was just hard to muster up some optimism and if there was some to be found, you knew that you might be alone in that thinking.

From there, we were thrust into a war on two fronts, taking young men from their communities and carrying them off to battles that collectively saw a Killed-In-Action Rate of roughly 55%. While there was some optimism coming from the end of the Depression or in watching folk heroes like Charles Lindbergh achieve the great feat of making the first transatlantic solo flight, the thought of action in Europe or the Pacific, and then later into the Korean War, would suppress much of it. Now I wasn’t there for it, so I can do nothing but imagine the horror and uncertainty in knowing the world was capable of the atomic bomb, which in 1945, was shown to be a very real part of the American arsenal and as the search for military supremacy took over the globe, it wasn’t far off to think that the Germans or the Soviets or the Japanese could also develop such a weapon that would threaten our homeland. This was hardly the moment in our history where the world felt secure, but yet as a resilient people, we continued to forge ahead knowing that the war would someday end, the dawn of a new era would be upon us, and that despite the odds or the noise around us, the country begged for progress.

True to the name, this “Silent Generation” seemingly never spoke openly about the realities of war and for the ones that made it back home, reintegrating into daily life and normalcy proved difficult. Simply put, deep in the memory of those soldiers are images that most of us have only seen in movies. There is nothing that could

Countless are the benefits of small-town or rural life, and, for some, a life farther off the grid. But for a family with a remote abode and very sick child needing to access lifesaving medical care, the once cherished remoteness poses a substantial roadblock to accessing cutting-edge medical care at a distant children’s hospital. A unique aviation charity, AeroAngel, has helped eliminate that barrier for many families through its service of providing free private jet flights flown from small, rural airports.

A nonprofit with a unique mission

AeroAngel has a unique mission - provide free, private jet flights for children with serious health challenges needing to travel to distant, lifesaving medical care when no other safe travel option exists. AeroAngel carefully vets each flight request to ensure only those children who have no other safe travel option, such as a commercial airline flight or reasonable drive to medical care receive a donated flight. According to AeroAngel’s Executive Director and Founder, Mark Pestal, “our flights serve a unique niche of passengers. They are not air ambulance flights, but reserved for children, for instance, with no immune system, often the result of chemotherapy or a genetic disorder.”

An AeroAngel private jet flight is a critical link in the healthcare chain for many families. Private jets that typically seat eight or more passengers can accommodate small medical devices not allowed on a commercial airline flight, or a nurse or extra caregiver. The organization can also fly in and out of small airports with shorter runways not accessible by a regional airline. There is no standing in a long TSA-screening line with a medically fragile child. In fact, there’s no wait at all from the time the family arrives at a private general aviation terminal. In most cases, a family can drive their vehicle right up to the plane and have only a few steps to unload and then hop on board, thereby avoiding their sick child having any contact with the general public.