Lost Generation

What began as a term referring to a group of artists and writers who came of age during World War l became the phrase used to describe the entire generation. It originated from a statement that writer Gertrude Stein made to a young Earnest Hemmingway soon after the end of World War l:
"All of you young people who served in the war.... You are all a lost generation."
Hemmingway wrote about the exchange years later in A Moveable Feast, a memoir about the struggles he endured as an expatriate journalist and writer in Paris during the 1920s.
Other writers and artists who Hemmingway worked with in Paris, France, included in the original cohort of the Lost Generation included Wilfred Owens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Beach, Gertrude Stein, E.E. Cummings, Max Eastman, T.S. Elliot, Ford Maddox Ford, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound.
The term "lost" was used to describe the feeling of disenchantment and discouragement felt by many, especially artists, writers, and philosophers after the debauchery and death of World War l. With the loss of principles, morals, ethics, faith, and traditional standards came a bend toward self-indulgence, pleasure-seeking, rebellion, and for some, lack of purpose. The literature of the 1920s reflected the sarcasm, pessimism, and disappointment of their generation.
War is the common denominator. The mental and physical wounds, the atrocities of combat, and the struggle to return to a normal that no longer exists has been handed down from one generation to the next. Every generation riddled with war is a 'Lost Generation."
Although the effects of war were great, so were the actions of those who served. There were heroes, both men and women, who served their countries with honor and distinction. The following stories are a testament to the extraordinary heroism and intrepidity of those who served in the United States Armed Forces. All were born between 1883 and 1900, coming of age during World War l and returning to a "Lost Generation."