I've come to the conclusion that the entertainment media is clueless.
Yeah, I can just hear the response now. "Like, DOH!" I know. But it's the little things that get me.
Since
September 11 th , when the US began to back our armed forces as no
nation has in, well in a long time, not one single song has hit the
charts about just loving the military and "military guys." Not one. I
know, I listen to the "Top 40" stations. It wouldn't be that hard;
modern "artists" recycle stuff all the time. Heck, I expected Britney
Spears or J-Lo to recycle "I Need A Hero" or "Don't Sit Under the Apple
Tree" by September 15 th . What would it take? Three hours in the
studio and a really good producer? What, you think it would flop? Hah.
But
there's other stuff. Okay, war is hell. I know that. You only have to
spend a few hours by a Cuban rotting in the sun to get that clearly
fixed in your cranium. But, well I think Bobby Lee said it best: "It is
good that war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it." War
is hell. But war is also cool.
I'm sorry, there's no other
word to use. It's cool. It's part of the reason it happens. There's
dramatic tension and desire and truly boss "stuff" all wrapped up in
one hot, sweaty package. There's a reason that war movies do so well.
War is cooler than football. Football is hell, too. You only have to go
through one Summer Camp to know that. But we Americans really eat it
up. They eat up the pain and the tragedy and the glory of football,
knowing full well the cost to the players. And we could eat this war up
in the same (ratings enhancing might I add) way.
Let me
drop in a little piece I picked up on the net. This is from an A-10
("Hawg") driver. I don't know who he is but he spake truth:
"But
that's just my personal end... here's what else I want...I want John
Madden, Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long, to take over CNN, NBC, ABC and
every other news network, to provide coverage of this war... I want
Madden, with his electronic chalkboard, out there describing what's
going on... "You see here, across the top of the screen, that ridge
line is exactly where the attack is gonna come from... you'll see the
Warthawgs come popping over them and unleash a fury that we haven't
seen since Lawrence Taylor was on the prowl...Speaking of that, here
they come and BAM!!! These guys are great!... they remind me of
linemen... they don't get much press coverage, but when they hit you,
man do you know it!"
I guarantee that he's not the only
one who wants to see that. And if you think I'm being "mean" about this
or "not caring about the seriousness", let me point out that the people
who are really going to eat it up are the poor sods going in harm's
way. Guys like that tend to be a bit "mean-spirited." It takes a degree
of "meanness" to shoot somebody.
There is a huge media
opportunity here and, what is more important to me, a real "shot in the
arm" to the military. There is an opportunity to show the American
people what the military does, in the same way that they "learn" about
football every Monday night. And there is an opportunity to send those
poor bastards off in style. To let them get some the glory that is
their just desserts.
So the next time you see some Marines boarding a chopper, ask yourself:
"Where're the cheerleaders? Where's the play by play?"
Those
guys going into Kandahar should have been running down a line of Dallas
Cowboy cheerleaders and breaking out a great big American flag to
cheers of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" There was no tactical reason they couldn't
and no operational reason they couldn't and, trust me, the guys
boarding the choppers would have ate it up.
And so would the American people.
There
ought to be cheerleaders. There ought to be songs all over the radio
about going in harm's way and coming home. Rick Dee's Number One should
be a rap version of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." There ought to
be play by play and "Strike of the Day." Because that is what America does when it really cares about something.
Or do we really not care as much about our Marines as we do about football?