America's Upbeat Mood

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inflamed again by the Iranian hostage taking. Even Americans who disapproved of the Grenada invasion were not horrified very deeply or for very long. "Some people may feel good about invading Grenada," says Hayden. "Personally, I think that's a farce combined with tragedy. By contrast, there's nothing wrong and everything right with celebrating missions into space. And I'm proud about Los Angeles' sponsoring a positive, uplifting Olympics in a city which had been perceived as being incapable of an achievement of that sort."

Of course, straightforward Stars and Stripes evidence is plentiful too. The armed forces are easily filling their recruitment quotas. The re-enlistment rate is 71%, the highest since World War II. The Army National Guard has met its authorized strength for the past three years. Applications for admission to the three service academies rose by 59% between 1980 and 1984. Old Glory is having a heyday too. The Art Flag Co. of Manhattan, a major national distributor, reports a sales increase of 30% this year. During the Olympics, a Los Angeles County inventor was awarded a patent for his electric flag-waving machine. Ridiculous, maybe, but there is also the sublime. In San Francisco last July 2, as a pair of middle-aged bohemians left the Flag Shop with their purchase, a more orthodox customer arrived. "I'm surprised you'd sell a flag to the likes of them," the man said to Owner Jim Ferrigan, who was riled. "Hey, buddy," he told the man, "the flag belongs to everyone."

For Americans who came of age during the Viet Nam War, the patriotic impulse is tempered by their generational experience. "If patriotism is love of country, the land and communities, we'll buy that," says David McCauley, head of the Vermont American Friends Service Committee. "If it is just flag waving and adventurism in foreign policy, we won't." Jack Wheeler believes the disputes of the past 20 years permanently affected his peers' sense of citizenship. "The Viet Nam generation was an idealistic bunch of people," he told TIME Washington Correspondent Jay Branegan. "This idealism is fertile ground for a healthy patriotism." By healthy, Wheeler means cooler and more thoughtful. Says he: "I feel once burned, I'm not going to be twice burned. Even though our patriotism is evident, it isn't fully flowered. It's still tentative. The baby boomers, says Wheeler, who is a Republican, "have a sense that life isn't as simple as in the old days. They can't slip into simplistic, chauvinistic patriotism. Theirs is a generous and mature patriotism, [not] thin and shrill." Ron Hayes, a Minnesota farm-management teacher, is seven years older than Wheeler, and just over the generational line. "When they play The Star-Spangled Banner" Hayes says, "I can still feel a chill up my spine. But I doubt if my kids are like that." Maybe, maybe not, but his two sons are in the service. Moreover, unselfconscious patriotic feeling seems rampant among teenagers.

A pointed Americanism is seeping into the cultural stream too. Right after the Los Angeles Games, ABC broadcast the premier episode of Call to Glory, a new series, set in the early 1960s, about Air Force fighter pilots. Says a network insider: "The campaign to promote