It is a shame that The Silent Generation were not able to pass on their knowledge and experience to the current batch of misguided Millennials, Gen Y, Gen X and boomers

They would have, but the Silent Generation (born between 1928-1945), born and raised in a period of extreme mass unemployment, starvation, and death in the form of the Great Depression (1929-1939) followed immediately by World War II (1939-1945), took out their trauma on their Boomer offspring, so any lessons or messages they might have been trying to convey were lost in the cacophony of abuse. Keep in mind their parents, the so-called "Greatest Generation" (1901-1924), also survived the Great War (1914-1918) prior to that and already had a really warped view of the world. That's a lot of generational trauma heaped onto the Boomers, both directly and indirectly.

Those fuckin Boomer kids suffered through some pretty awful abuse; they never stood a chance, man. It wasn't at all acceptable to talk about mental issues or even entertain the idea of asking for help, so as they grew up they just buried that shit and went into eternal denial mode. Worse, they reinforced their fucked up worldviews by abusing their own kids, the Gen Xers and Millennials, who in turn passed on that same generational trauma to...sigh, you get my point. I mean, each generation does seem to get a little better at shedding that old toxic "fuck you, I got mine" mindset, but it's a slow process. Look at how far-reaching that shit is, FFS. That "Greatest Trauma" period was a hundred years ago, and we're still suffering from the effects.

TL;DR they were incapable because trauma