Man Of The Year: The Inheritor

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elders have been willing to adapt to the outward life style of the young, they have been far more chary of their inner motivations and discrete mores. Youth, of course, has always been a topic of indefatigable fascination to what was once regarded as its elders and betters. But today's young people are the most intensely discussed and dissected generation in history.

Modern communications have done much to put them on center stage. Returning from a recent rally on the Berkeley campus, one U.C. coed reported that the demonstration had been a fiasco. "Why," she lamented, "we didn't get a single TV camera!" A more compelling reason for adult angst is that the young seem curiously unappreciative of the society that supports them. "Don't trust anyone over 30," is one of their rallying cries. Another, "Tell it like it is," conveys an abiding mistrust of what they consider adult deviousness.

Sociologists and psephologists call them "alienated" or "uncommitted"; editorial writers decry their "noninvolvement." In fact, the young today are deeply involved in a competitive struggle for high grades, the college of their choice, a good graduate school, a satisfactory job—or, if need be, for survival in Viet Nam. Never have they been enmeshed so early or so earnestly in society. Yet they remain honestly curious and curiously honest. Far from "disaffiliated," they are more gregarious than any preceding generation.

Hang-Ups & Ardor. Despite its vast numbers and myriad subspecies, today's youth is most accurately viewed through the campus window: nearly 40% of all American youth go on to higher education,* and more will soon follow.

Despite their vaunted hang-ups, Yale's Kenneth Keniston, 36, a Rhodes scholar who has concentrated on student psychology, concludes that most of today's college students are a dedicated group of "professionalists." In the meritocracy of the '60s and '70s, he says, "no young man can hope simply to repeat the life pattern of his father; talent must be continually improved." According to Keniston, only about one student in ten deviates from the spartan code of professionalism. "Few of these young men and women have any doubt that they will one day be part of our society," he concludes. "They wonder about where they will fit in, but not about whether."

For the American fighting man in Viet Nam, the "whether" does not even arise. Unlike his World War II or Korean predecessor, he has known all his life that he must serve a military tour of duty, indeed has planned it along with college, marriage and choice of vocation. From the moment he arrives (usually aboard a comfortable troop ship), through his bivouac experience (under conditions less arduous than most Stateside weekend hunting camps), to combat itself (as intense as any in history, but brief), he is supported by the best that his country can offer—even though it is to fight a mean and dirty war.

He is swiftly moved into and out of combat in planes, helicopters or trucks.

He has a camera, transistor, hot meals and regular mail. If he is hit, he can be hospitalized in 20 minutes; if he gets nervous, there are chaplains and psychiatrists on call. It is little wonder that he fights so well, and quite