What We Fought For, What We Lost, What We Built
You want to talk about generations?
Fine.
Let’s talk about the Boomers—the most misunderstood, maligned, and manipulated generation in modern history.
We didn’t inherit comfort. We were born into chaos.
We were the ones who Lost
- Watched our President blown apart in a motorcade.
- Mourned when his brother, Robert, was gunned down for believing in unity.
- Wept when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man of peace, was assassinated for preaching nonviolence and justice.
We were the ones Paid.
- Got shipped off to die in Vietnam, whether we believed in it or not.
- Came home to no parades, spit on and shamed for a war we didn’t start.
- Faced a draft lottery on live television—life or death decided by a number.
We were the ones who Marched.
- Marched with Black brothers and sisters through Selma and Montgomery.
- Took batons to the skull for voting rights.
- Watched our friends get locked up, beat up, and too often, buried—for standing up when it mattered.
We were the ones who Fought:
- Got sprayed with tear gas outside the ‘68 Democratic Convention—not because we hated America, but because we loved it enough to protest what it was becoming.
- Occupied campuses to protest injustice, not to play activist dress-up.
- Died at Kent State, shot by our own government—for the crime of raising our voices.
We were the ones who Stood:
- Fought for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and free speech—when those causes were still dangerous.
- Took bullets and batons so your generation could tweet about oppression from your couch.
We were the ones who Built:
- Built the modern tech world—yes, Boomers gave you the backbone of the internet, personal computers, space travel, and medical advances.
- Turned on the lights in the places Gen X and Gen Z now live, complain, and pretend to be brave in.
So when we hear this modern chorus of “Okay Boomer,”
what we really hear is a generation that doesn’t know what real fight sounds like.
We buried heroes. We carried causes.
And we paid in blood, sweat, and decades of moral labor so you could inherit a society that—while flawed—was freer, louder, and more connected than anything that came before.
You want to talk about soft?
Boomers weren’t soft.
Boomers were sandblasted raw by history—and got back up.
So go ahead.
Mock us.
Blame us.
Write us off like we’re the punchline to your half-informed TikTok outrage.
But if you ever want to know what it means to stand for something,
go dig up the stories behind the names you barely remember:
MLK. JFK. RFK. Kent State. Selma. The March on Washington. The Vietnam Wall. Stonewall. Watergate.
Boomers didn’t run from the fire.
We were born in it.
And some of us still remember how to burn clean.
And when we’re gone,
we’re leaving you with some of the best damn music ever created—
born in the middle of riot smoke, heartbreak, and hope.
And that my friends is only half the story.
