They are still counting the bodies in New York City.

        There were 58,219 deaths in my generation's first war, one we both fought and resisted. Some of us in Southeast Asia. Some of us on campus. Some of us at the dinner table.

        Our parents were in charge. We were simply the soldiers. And protesters.

        Richard J. Daley, the Chicago mayor who presided over rioting at the Democratic Convention in 1968, is dead. One of his sons is mayor of that city. Another son was campaign manager for Al Gore.

        A new generation is in charge.
       

Challenging rules

        Have we grown up enough for the job? Can we look away from the Nasdaq long enough to figure out what to do next? We cannot bear to wait two minutes in line for our Starbucks latte. Can we be patient enough to work our way through this?

        Our parents lived by the rules. We challenged them. We pride ourselves on being flexible. Boy, are we flexible. Flexible mortgage rates. Flexible securities. Flexible living arrangements. Flexible hours. Flexible morals.

        Our president was born in the first year of the baby boom, a generation defined by the end of a war and a return of its soldiers. Korea when we were children. Vietnam, of course. But, mostly, prosperity and if not peace, at least not war on our doorstep. Not since 1812 has a war come to us.

        Now it has.

        And what will we do?

        We'll act like Americans.

A national resolve?

        When the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in 1995, people lined up to give blood. Volunteers crawled through a treachery of collapsed walls and dangling wires and sagging floors, looking for life. The people of Oklahoma City raised more than $7 million for children who were orphaned. They paid for the funerals of strangers. They were at the bedsides of survivors. They planted trees. They prayed.

        “If somebody wanted to figure out how to unite us,” says Dr. Creighton Wright, who packed up his scalpel and took it to the Gulf War when he was asked, “this would be exactly the way. I'm ready to put my uniform back on.”

        Chief of surgery at Jewish Hospital, Dr. Wright says doctors have been calling him nonstop to see how they can help.

        “I would never, ever bet against this country,” said Blue Ash financial planner Nathan Bachrach, speaking on his cell phone from LaGuardia, minutes after the attacks in New York. “People here are calm. But angry.”

        In Cincinnati, Hoxworth Blood Center was overwhelmed with donors.

        Greta Meiners of North College Hill said her husband, Kenneth, was sent home from his construction job. “He sat for a while. He didn't say anything. Then he got out our flag and put it up in the front yard.”

        We were raised by the Greatest Generation. Maybe we won't be better than they were when war was declared on their watch. But we can be worthy of them.

        It's our turn.

        It's time to show our own children and grandchildren what we're made of.

       E-mail Laura at lpulfer@enquirer.com or call 768-8393.

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