What's up with all the militaristic stuff at games?

[zoogs]

and I find it weird that people try to outpatriotic each other at football games

Yes.

[kozzman555]

 

 

 

 

 

So other than extra tributes everywhere yesterday on Veterans Day weekend of all things, what "rituals" that normally occur on Saturdays at Memorial Stadium are "overkill" in your opinion??? The color guard and National Anthem? The flyover??? The recognition of the servicemen that executed said flyover???

 

Not calling unamerican or anything like that, just curious what is being overly "shoved down fans throats" in regards to military platforms. These are the normal three things that I see every Saturday that would even fall into your category.

 

Really confused here

Sure, there's your list. Mentions of Sept 11. There are others. It adds up. BTN has regular (and many) recruitment ads, the per-game Marines "Leader of the Week" for outstanding play, etc. After awhile it borders on being one long commercial.

 

 

Exactly. With out a draft you have to recruit people to join the military. Many people who watch football are in the demographic that the military is trying to reach. Not so much with "Dancing with the Stars" or "Golden Girls" reruns.

 

Same with beer commercials

 

 

True, without a draft you do need to recruit. Some might question how healthy it is for a society to foster and uphold a "warrior class" (for lack of a better name), but that's a whole other can of worms.

 

 

Hmm...some (you) might question how healthy it is for a society to foster and uphold a "warrior class"....

 

You explain a lot about yourself with this one sentence. You live in an echo chamber. All you hear is from other people who agree with you. I actually applaud you posting on here, probably knowing you're going to get some vehement disagreement. You're moving outside your comfort zone and that's a good start. Since you opened this door, or can of worms, allow me to burst through it.

 

If you, or anyone else, even question our society fostering and upholding a "warrior class" you haven't really seen much of this country or world. You've never seen horror. You've never seen evil. You've never seen a man use his own pregnant wife and mother as a human shield and fire from behind them (this happened). That is evil. That is horror. These things exist. You can't rationally explain why people do some of the things that they do. Like flying planes into buildings full of civilians. This accomplished nothing, except the loss of innocent lives. Suicide bombers targeting schools in Pakistan and India, knife attacks on the elderly in Israel, these are all evil actions that defy logic or reason.

 

We in the United States have mostly been spared from these horrors. It's not something we really fear happening to us on a daily basis. We don't have government sponsored execution squads rounding up and massacring people just because of their religion or because of who their grandparents were. We don't have government or religious sponsored rape or slavery (not anymore, thanks to our warrior class). We don't have those things because we have people here who are willing to step up and put their lives on the line to make sure that sh1t doesn't happen to anyone.

 

If this was some perfect utopia where, in the words of that turd Rodney King, we all got along, we wouldn't need our warrior class. And I can guarantee you, they would be happy to lay down their arms and live peacefully. But we don't live in that idyllic world. This isn't the Age of Aquarius. We live in a world that can be dirty and barbaric and vicious. We live in a world with warlords and dictators that need to be stopped so peaceful men and women can survive and prosper. If we didn't foster our warrior class, we would still be an English colony. We would see the Barbary coast still looting, pillaging and enslaving Christians for the crime of not being a Muslim. We would still have slavery. We would see a world taken over by Germany and Japan, slaughtering innocents and using them for medical testing. We would see a world where rampant hatred and intolerance is allowed to grow unchecked and continue to claim even more lives in the name of Allah. These men and women who stand up against these evils, who you appear to disdain, are what keep the wolves from your door and allow you to be disdainful of what they do. Until that day comes, when there is no more evil, that warrior class has got you covered.

 

Maybe my opinion is colored by my service, colored by the evil I've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe it is, but I doubt it. I think I can speak for most of us veterans when I say that we don't want a pat on the back or free food or a blow job (Edit: I lied, I'd totally take a blow job). It's not why we do this. But if some people want to take a minute and thank my brothers and sisters for doing what most people won't, do me a favor and shut the f#*k up.

[...]

 

Kozz, I was not verbose enough in my above statement and I think that led to a misunderstanding in what I meant by warrior class. huSKer had pointed out that without a draft you need to recruit. My can-o-worms comment questioning how healthy it was to foster and uphold a warrior class was not about the necessity or not about having a standing army, it was instead intended to relate to who we are relying upon to fill the ranks, where those people are coming from, and what are we doing to ensure that current and future defense needs are met.

Up through Vietnam, if the nation decided it was to wage war, people were largely simply conscripted and forced to fight it. After Vietnam, this system was replaced with one which relies upon voluntary enlistment, but such voluntary enlistment requires a stepped up marketing and recruitment effort along with a stepped up benefits and pay package to help convince people that they should enlist in the armed services.

From the point of view of the DoD, this has worked reasonably well. For the most part, the ranks have been kept full even through the numerous wars and conflicts we have found ourselves in since Vietnam. By relying upon volunteers rather than forced conscripts, moral is higher. Professionalism is higher. Turnover is lower, etc. But there is a question that should be asked: Is this actually better for society?

Is it a good thing that wide swathes of people can largely ignore our foreign entanglements because it does not affect them? Is it a good thing that the DoD deliberately markets to kids, with the intention that the messages speaking of honor, valor, and adventure will influence their decision to enlist once they are of age? Are there political ramifications for this marketing down the road as these kids reach adulthood regarding the proper purpose of military and how it should be used in the world, especially if they do not have to worry about such decisions directly affecting them?

This voluntary recruitment system has led to the warrior class that I spoke of, one that is largely set apart from the general population, and in some cases is not very representative of the general population (as military service tends to run in families). Is that actually a healthy thing? I tend to think it is not.

 

 

Well, that's what you get for not being loquacious when dealing with a controversial subject. Although, to be more precise, neither loquacious or verbose would be accurate in this context as both imply that one is speaking or writing more than what is needed to convey the required information. It would be more apropos to state that you were unnecessarily brief, given the "can of worms" you were potentially opening. #wordsmith

 

And yes, I think a warrior class, as you have more clearly explained, is healthier than the alternative. It's healthier to have people who WANT to be there fighting next to you than someone who HAS to be there. It's a very important distinction. You cannot count on someone who is only there because they have to, as anyone who has done a group lab project in college can attest. This is not a good thing (understatement) when people's lives are quite literally on the line. Motivation and mental thought patterns matter in combat. This is why the targets you shoot at in training are shaped like people. Hesitation can get you or someone else killed. There's a reason why people like me can can sleep like content quiet little babies at night despite the things I've done and seen, and others wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of someone not using the correct gender pronoun. Some people are just mentally built for this sh1t, others aren't.

 

A draft sounds all cool and patriotic and a good idea to help straighten out the delicate little butterflies that need their safe spaces from hurtful words, but in the long run, those types of people being in the military would degrade our capabilities, not strengthen them.

 

Speaking of hurtful words, Moraine, you spelled my nickname incorrectly. If I had feelings, they would be crushed.

[kozzman555]

EDIT: Sorry, double post

 

[Frustrated]

Kozzman, thank you for your service!

[Moiraine]

Speaking of hurtful words, Moraine, you spelled my nickname incorrectly. If I had feelings, they would be crushed.

 

I was on my phone so it doesn't count, and you spelled my name wrong too

[kozzman555]

 

Speaking of hurtful words, Moraine, you spelled my nickname incorrectly. If I had feelings, they would be crushed.

 

I was on my phone so it doesn't count, and you spelled my name wrong too

 

 

[Husker Red Til Dead]