Crimson Red Sports

Today Ronald Reagan would be 101 years old; he was born in the same era as my father, and like my father, his intellect, values, and worldview were shaped by the defining events of the 20th century. Those were terrible, daunting times, as America lurched from crisis to crisis — World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, and the economic stagnation of the 1980s. America’s very identity seemed to be on trial, yet I question how much of this is understood by today’s young adults.

According to surveys by The New York Times and U.S. News & World Report, 25 percent of America’s young adults don’t know who Adolf Hitler was. About the same percentage can’t place the president as the leader of the executive branch of our federal government. An appalling 70 percent could not identify the U.S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land.

When I wrote the novel “Forrest Gump” 25 years ago, I decided to take Forrest on a romp through history, beginning in the 1960s, not because I wanted to instruct people about such incidents as the Vietnam War, the opening of China to the West, I did it because these events provided a perfect foil for Gump’s character.

But after the movie came out, I found that a great many young people, while they enjoyed the film, didn’t seem to grasp the historical circumstances that inspired it. That was why I jumped at the chance to tell the story of Ronald Reagan, who not only lived through the most exciting times in America since the Civil War, but became a major player in them.

Winston Groom is the author of sixteen books, most recently Ronald Reagan Our 40th President. His other books include Forrest Gump, Kearny’s March, Shrouds of Glory, Vicksburg: 1863, and Conversations with the Enemy, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He lives with his wife and daughter in Point Clear, Alabama.