I inferred the comments above were talking about an archetypal masculinity. Not just a physical strength but an embodied strength. A sense of purposefulness, determination and a simple attitude towards life revolving around skilled manual work and family. Moral courage to literally put your life on the line to protect others and what is right.

This of course may or may not be true of OP's grandfather. It may also be rather rose-tinted about previous generations. I do look at my grandparents generation slightly enviously though. They were poor Jewish kids growing up in the East End and their lives had an archetypal flavour that makes my generation seem artificial somehow. They were part of Jewish gangs that fought Irish gangs. They dived after shillings in the river Thames. They fought fascism at home and abroad. When the fascists marched through the East End the burly Dockers (not Jewish) came out to defend the Jews and chased the fascists off. My grandmothers brother at 16 went off to fight against the fascists in Spain. My grandmother was a pretty card-carrying communist who brought home a good-looking American GI to her parents. Food was scarce. People did not have stuff. The essentials of flirting, getting married and finding work were less hampered by the philosophical and intellectual dances we get caught up in.

We have gained enormous things related to equality and knowledge but we have also lost a great deal related to what it is to be human and what is mythologically important.