I have an old friend — literally — who’s now well into his 90s. During World War II, he served in the Pacific Theater of Operations. A few years ago, when Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced the miniseries “The Pacific” and HBO brought veterans of the Pacific campaign to the World War II Memorial in D.C. as a tribute, I asked my pal if he was going.

“Hell no,” he said rather curtly. When I pushed him, he said, “Look, I’m not into this whole ‘Greatest Generation’ stuff. I’m proud of my service during the war, but I’m not wild about all of the mythologizing and self-aggrandizing hype. My generation did what it had to do. We did the best we could and it was no picnic, believe me. But I don’t need to be feted.”

Perhaps he was being falsely modest (or just having a bad day), but I found his response refreshing and honest. Especially coming from a generation myself where my friends and I have often joked that we might be speaking Japanese if called on to fight the imperial emperor after Pearl Harbor.

The truth is, every generation does the best it can with the hand it’s dealt, like my friend said, whether they’re coming off the Great Depression, WW II, the divisive times of the Vietnam era or the dark days of disco and leisure suits.

Today’s generation often gets a bad rap. baby boomers and Gen Xers love to kvetch and make jokes at the expense of millennials, branding them as narcissistic, spoiled, materialistic, cynical and lacking in work ethic. I fall prey to it myself sometimes.

Like many stereotypes and generalizations, there may actually be a thread of validity in those characterizations, but I’m not sure you couldn’t make the same claims about my generation when we were young, just starting out in the world and rather naïve and pampered. Of course, following in the footsteps of a generation that fought for civil rights and women’s equality, as well as stopping an ill-conceived war in Indochina, we were bound to come up a bit short.

That’s why any gross generalization about millennials has to be taken with a grain of salt. Obviously there are a lot of young people out there doing a lot of good work who have excellent attitudes and “people skills.” And for those that don’t, the academic institution my dad used to say he graduated from, the “College of Hard Knocks,” will teach them what we all learn in this life: that nothing’s simply handed to you and we’re all in this together. Whether we like it or not.

For the cover story for this issue, we profile 10 people under 40 who defy the conventional wisdom and skepticism about today’s young people. In such fields as commerce, development, philanthropy, spirituality and community activism, these folks are thriving and making a difference in the world, representing the cream of the crop of their generation. But they’re doing it on their own terms, coming from their own unique perspectives and experiences.

We’re lucky to have them. They give us hope for the future, something that’s desperately needed in this world right now.

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