Lindsay, LeBron and Snooki Don’t Represent

While the media obsesses over bad twenty-somethings, there are young U.S. men and women fighting — and dying — overseas

Twenty-somethings have been getting a bad rap the past month.

For years the media has been stalking the bad behavior of 24-year-old Lindsay Lohan, until she finally free-fell into jail. Her tearful plea to the judge was carried live on cable; even her tweets on twitter passed for news.

And then there was 25-year-old LeBron James, who went from being one of the most loved players in all of sports to one of the most reviled. LeBron broke the heart of Cleveland and manipulated us all to record ratings.

And finally there is the cast of Jersey Shore. Their new season is being covered as if they get Super Bowl ratings. They don’t. The show gets ratings more in line with a New Jersey Nets game. And yet the media is fascinated with this over-sexed, over-tanned, over-gelled, vacuous group of kids who trigger a gag reflex in most of us.

You might think from watching TV news that America’s future is in trouble; that our youth is out of control, selfish and self-obsessed.

That couldn’t be further than the truth.

Let me introduce you to six twenty-somethings that will change your mind, young men that TV news ignored.

20-year-old Frederik Vasquez from Melrose Park, Illinois

24-year-old Conrad Mora from San Diego, California

23-year-old Daniel Lim of Cypress, California

27-year-old Joseph Bauer from Cincinnati, Ohio

25-year-old Andrew Hand of Enterprise, Alabama

20-year-old James Oquin from El Paso, Texas

These young men, heroes all, epitomize selflessness and self-discipline. They died in Afghanistan this past week.

As TV news, in its obsession with celebrity and scandal, clumsily defines our nation’s youth by its worst examples of ego, addiction and greed, remember that it is because twenty-somethings are willing to take up arms and fight for this country that we are free.

So when you think of our future and our youth, don’t think of Lindsay, LeBron and Snooki. Think of Frederik, Conrad, Daniel, Joseph, Andrew, James and the tens of thousands of young men and women who have died and are willing to die for America.

They deserve our attention, even if the media ignores them.