Dear Mr. Prager:
I give my name falsely as John Smith today solely to avoid compromising my parents, who I believe did about the best they could to raise my brother and me in a confusing world, who surely merit the honor God commands me to render them. Born in the 1940s, they are of your generation. Born in 1967 and growing up in the 1970s in California, now living in another state with my wife and three children of our own, I am of the generation to which you target your apology.
Except that illegal drugs thankfully never touched my life, you describe my upbringing and family history with uncanny fidelity, in every particular. How could you do this, when you never knew me? How do I yearn for the old America of which you tell, which I never knew, in which to raise my own children.
Mr. Prager, your generation holds the power in America and will for many years to come. One finds it hard to suppose that the good America of the Eisenhower and Kennedy eras of your youth could now ever fully return, but surely there remains much good in her that could yet be salvaged. Americans like me perforce look to your generation for leadership. How could we do otherwise? What choice have we? It is in the nature of things. We who now raise children of our own have no option but to trust you. Your hair is now gray. Your wisdom prevails. You lead. What now will you do with this trust?
Will you not use the years of strength that remain to you to repair as much of the damage as you can? Besides actually having the power, you unlike we retain a living memory of the great America that so recently was. If you cannot lead the rebuilding of the nation, then how will we do it twenty or thirty years hence, when our hair is gray, when your generation has passed away, taking with you the last clear memory of that which could have been?
I have no words to express how deeply your article has moved me; but, sir, as you know, an apology is only a start. We are not against you. We are for you, because we are of you, just as our own children are of us. If your interests are not our interests, then whose interests are they? What will you now do? If the pride of your generation consumes the nation of your fathers in the end, the more so does it consume our nation; for they are our fathers, too. God bless you and keep you. Please do not let us down.
Sincerely,
John Smith