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abezontar wrote:why can't you consider athletes in the military that have served in during times of major conflict since vietnam? It's not like other situations that we have place our troops into since then haven't gotten them shot at any less.

I just wrote a long winded response and it didn't post so i am goin to get to the point..

The point of my research is to show that the generation of young men who fought in WWII and up to nam are almost an extinct generation..

Ask yourself this: How many all americans, olympians, and professional athletes have there been post Vietnam? Yes i realize we got rid of the draft, but my question still stands. Never again will the top recruit in the nation go to Navy and I doubt you will see an American gold medalist from an academy.

Pat Tillman.

yes.. pat tillman was included in my long winded point.. i was just mad that is didn't post and forgot to mention him..

in my original point i stated that i have done quite a bit of research on him and found mainly mag articles and newspaper articles that were mainly biased (both ways)..

when i did my original research 2 years ago, there had been little time to write a book on him.. and the response from his family after his death, i highly doubt there will be a book written about him..
I truly respect his family for being that way..

Again my point.. there is one person like that now in our generation.. that was the norm for the baby boomers and WWII and Korean vets

forgive my ignorance, but wasn't david robinson in the military?

I guess I am just having trouble comprehending what you think that difference says or means? Why write the book?

abezontar"forgive my ignorance, but wasn't david robinson in the military?"

wow. so yall have listed two players..here is another one chad hennings... list 7 more and I will be happy to include them after i have done research on just 50 of several hundred if not over a 1,000 men (and probably women) who fit the description of my research..

better yet.. you can can do the research on recent athletes in the military if you can come up w/ 10 and then i will be happy to take that info..

but you are forgetting my point..
its a lost generation.. give me 5 people who have been an all american, olympian, or pro that came from the military since 1990..
Hennings and Robinson are out.. the RB from Denver is in.. four more..
but that still doesn't change my point..

ask yourself this.. did vince young ever think about goin to army, navy, or the airforce..

look at the top 100 national and state recruits on rivals and dmn .. how many of those guys have either of those three schools listed?

hopefully now you get my point..

Honestly, I don't get your point at all. I suspect if you looked closely you would find a dropoff in military service from a whole bunch of categories of people since the discontinuance of the draft, not just athletes. Look at actors, or dentists, or lumberjacks or jugglers and I suspect you'll see the same trend.

Moreover, ALL of the folks who served in WW2, Korea and Vietnam are "dying off" as you put it, not just athletes. What makes an athlete who served in Korea any more a member of your "unique generation" than the pipefitter who served next to him?

I think I understand his point. There was a time when college athletics were led by the service academies. Army and Navy were powerhouses and supplied a fair share a Heisman candidates and winners. Now the trend is for the athletes to go to the non-military institutions and forgo any military service. There could be many reasons for this, one of these as mentioned is the lack of a draft, coupled with different attituddes toward war today versus then. I do not think there is any doubt that the service schools are not getting the same caliber as before, but much of that may be due to the growth and expansion of college athletics rather than the military aspect. Of course, athletes with pro potential are not real high on committing to military service after school rahter than signing a $100,000,000,000,000 etc. contract.

so tmsutangp, is that your point? I still don't get it, rather than assuming that we all know what you are talking about, and being annoyed that we dont' "get it" why don't you explain it, and in a way that doesn't attempt to insult us in the process.

I'm sure you've researched all these reasons, but I can think of a few why military participation has dropped:

-More students than ever going to college. I imagine if an athlete had a chance in 1940 or 1950 to receive a top-quality education at West Point, they'd jump on it. Nowadays, college is not "a fantastic opportunity" so much as it is just the next step after high school.

-The emergence of pro sports. Before televised NFL, NBA, etc, the college leagues were where the spotlight was. There wasn't as near as much money in pro sports as there is now. If you got to play for Army or Navy, you were big stuff, but now, with athletes looking past college to the NFL, they want somewhere they can get better and minimalize injuries/distractions. 4 years in the military after college doesn't really facilitate that plan, but 50 years ago, most didn't expect a career in pro sports.

-The drafting of high school athletes in the NBA. If you are a good player, you want to get to the NBA, and all its money, fame, etc. When similar aged players are signing out of high school, or after their first year of college, what is your motivation to stick out all 4 plus military service.

-The "me first" generation. I'd say that people respected a college degree more back in the day, and often jumped at the opportunity just to play anywhere. I doubt there were high school players in 1950 that signed with a college while sitting in their hot tub full of girls. Rather than "you want me to play at your school?" it's "what can I get if I play at your school".

SMUPhil wrote:I'm sure you've researched all these reasons, but I can think of a few why military participation has dropped:

-More students than ever going to college. I imagine if an athlete had a chance in 1940 or 1950 to receive a top-quality education at West Point, they'd jump on it. Nowadays, college is not "a fantastic opportunity" so much as it is just the next step after high school.

-The emergence of pro sports. Before televised NFL, NBA, etc, the college leagues were where the spotlight was. There wasn't as near as much money in pro sports as there is now. If you got to play for Army or Navy, you were big stuff, but now, with athletes looking past college to the NFL, they want somewhere they can get better and minimalize injuries/distractions. 4 years in the military after college doesn't really facilitate that plan, but 50 years ago, most didn't expect a career in pro sports.

-The drafting of high school athletes in the NBA. If you are a good player, you want to get to the NBA, and all its money, fame, etc. When similar aged players are signing out of high school, or after their first year of college, what is your motivation to stick out all 4 plus military service.

-The "me first" generation. I'd say that people respected a college degree more back in the day, and often jumped at the opportunity just to play anywhere. I doubt there were high school players in 1950 that signed with a college while sitting in their hot tub full of girls. Rather than "you want me to play at your school?" it's "what can I get if I play at your school".

my point exactly.. there was no such thing as a me first generation for the men who i want to research..

smu phil.. your reasons are exactly why i am so fascinated by this topic

tmustangp wrote:PK and Water Pony:

My sr yr i wrote a thesis paper on athletes in teh military and i really want to continue my research on and begin a podcast..

Were yall athletes? Do you know of any? Especially WWII, Korean, and Nam vets.

This topic fascinates me and unfortunately this generation is dying off and I would love to document as much of this "unique generation" as I can.

I honestly never got from this original post that you were limiting your inquiry to athletes who went to the academies, which is the source of my misunderstanding. And I'm still not sure of why you consider veteran athletes more significant than other veterens, except on a purely personal interest basis.

tmustangp wrote:abezontar"forgive my ignorance, but wasn't david robinson in the military?"

wow. so yall have listed two players..here is another one chad hennings... list 7 more and I will be happy to include them after i have done research on just 50 of several hundred if not over a 1,000 men (and probably women) who fit the description of my research..

better yet.. you can can do the research on recent athletes in the military if you can come up w/ 10 and then i will be happy to take that info..

but you are forgetting my point..
its a lost generation.. give me 5 people who have been an all american, olympian, or pro that came from the military since 1990..
Hennings and Robinson are out.. the RB from Denver is in.. four more..
but that still doesn't change my point..

ask yourself this.. did vince young ever think about goin to army, navy, or the airforce..

look at the top 100 national and state recruits on rivals and dmn .. how many of those guys have either of those three schools listed?

hopefully now you get my point..

David Robinson graduated from the Naval Academy, same as Roger Staubach and the first Heisman Trophy winner from the USNA, Joe Bellino, RB

tmustangp wrote:PK and Water Pony:

My sr yr i wrote a thesis paper on athletes in teh military and i really want to continue my research on and begin a podcast..

Were yall athletes? Do you know of any? Especially WWII, Korean, and Nam vets.

This topic fascinates me and unfortunately this generation is dying off and I would love to document as much of this "unique generation" as I can.

I was a Swimmer at SMU, co-captained team in 1968.

How can you not consider the kids of vietnam era part of the me first generation? These were the kids that were burning their draft cards and running off to Canada, they were most definitely looking out for number one.

I would think that the decreasing number of all-americans that have gone to the military schools has much more to do with the opporunities that have become increasingly available than with any personal motivating factor.

You have to remember, for the generations prior to the 70s and 80s, the only way a lot of people could get training, and opporunities in life was to enlist, otherwise they would end up working the family farm, a prospect that many of them (especially those who grew up in the 30s who saw the hardships their parents had to deal with) did not relish. Just like the poorer classes today, one of the only ways to get a chance to improve their lot in life was the military, and if they could play ball that was so much the better.

Schools like SMU may have offered scholarships, but I doubt that they paid for everything else, something the military did, that has changed today.

abezontar wrote:How can you not consider the kids of vietnam era part of the me first generation? These were the kids that were burning their draft cards and running off to Canada, they were most definitely looking out for number one.

They founded the me-first generation. Thanks, guys.