Leonard “Len” Zerlin belonged to a generation that answered history’s clearest moral call (see story on Page 11). Many Americans, including Zerlin’s generation, saw World War II as the nation’s most unambiguous fight for freedom— a war forced upon the United States by foreign aggressors and waged to defeat regimes built on conquest and genocide. But few dispute the extraordinary moral purpose that defined World War II or the sacrifices made by those who fought it. The Greatest Generation fought not for political slogans or open-ended missions, but to preserve liberty against tyranny. As their voices fade into history, America would do well to remember not only their valor, but also the clarity of purpose that inspired it.