The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm

Chapter 5. Silent Virtues: A Small Group with Its Own Impact

I grew up in the world of the war story. Kids love to hear war stories.

“Sarge” was a friend of my Mom’s. He had been in a tank in Europe in WWII. The tank took a direct hit from something that crippled it—and him. He lived, but apparently his crew died around him. He could tell the story in tragic detail, and while he spoke you could hear a pin drop. Sarge was a musician prior to the war but could no longer play. He just drank.

My friend’s dad was in the U.S. Air Force toward the end of the war, when we were firebombing Japan. His description of the flack that they had to fly through was so real that you felt like you were there. He said there was so much firepower on the ground that ...