You need to read "all" of Matthew 24 brother. The "generation" spoken of is the Generation of "the future". Yahushua is talking about the future Tribulation spoken of by the Prophets and by John in the book of Revelation, not the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Yes, there are parellels, when Jerusalem was surrounded in 70 AD many Jews did flee to Petra in the mountains, as Yahushua said to do, Messianic Jews. But this was all a foreshadow and Prophetic picture of the Greater world wide Tribulation that was and is yet to come. Jerusalem will be surrounded again in the end time, that's what we read in Zechariah and Revelation, and when the antichrist comes we are comanded to flee and hide. And why would we be told to do that if there was a "rapture" coming to save us from the trouble? Again read Matthew 24 in full. The clean undisputed context is the future Tribulation.
The Parallels you speak of are close between 70AD and the end times are limited to Christians fleeing the city. The armies you speak of surrounding Jerusalem in 70AD does not happen in the end times. The end time parallels are more closely matched with 167BC where the Abomination of Desolate did happen with Antiochus Epiphanies desecrated the temple with an Idol of Zeus. In the end time, the (antichrist/Satan) Beast will desecrate the temple (the 3rd temple) by calling himself GOD. When the Jewish people (believers/Messianic) see this, they are to flee.
Even here there is a difference. In 70AD not one Christian was killed because they escaped (another story within itself), but they did not have GOD's help fleeing. In the end time, Satan having been pushed out of heaven and merged with the Anti-christ, chases the Woman(israel) as they flee to Petra. God intervenes and save them from him and feeds and waters them. He also does this one other thing as spoken by Ezekiel 36:26-28. Here the believers are Justified by God.
Ezekiel 36:26-28 (KJV)...."26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God."
And then you ask: "And why would we be told to do that if there was a "rapture" coming to save us from the trouble? "
The rapture is for the removal of the Church (all believers in Jesus) prior to the Tribulations. God has told us he will spare us from the His wrath. However, His people (Jewish) are preordained to go through the Tribulations in order to bring them back to HIM >>>>>as Hosea 5:15 states......"I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early."
you said: "Again read Matthew 24 in full.",,, I have many many times.