Before the previews for what is supposed to be a feel good movie, my family was exposed to what I consider an insidious, dangerous, and an immoral uninvited attempt of trying to tap into the young fresh minds of those among the audience. From those that brought us the Patriot Act, which makes it a felony to exercise your rights of liberty. Yes - euphemisms are fun. It's not Global Warming, it's Climate Change. But I digress. There on the big screen was an advertisement for the National Guard. It was slick. Dramatically showing how in the darkest of nights, during a bad storm - perhaps after a hurricane, the National Guard could use you. If you have what it takes. Once there, perhaps YOU could be there to rescue that kitten still hiding. Maybe you will find that wedding picture album only gently touched by rain among the heaps of wreckage and gently hand it to the grieving family. You will see words on the screen talking of citizenship reminiscent of Starship Troopers taken out of the context and of course, for the wrong reasons. You will hear music that makes it sound glorious, rewarding, and honorable.
I worry. It seems to me the person who is responsible still has yet been held legally responsible. Where is the justice? The moron who got us into mess did not need to concern himself with being sent overseas to defend another contrived boondoggle that Ike himself would not support. This person did not uphold the Constitution and put the country as risk, morally, and fiduciary. His own experience? That war, the one Ike would not support? That was the other one that dragged on. He hid out in then what was exclusively the National Guard and when sober (not necessarily from drinking) he showed up. He played it 'safe'. I just wonder, If Nixon had decided to send the National Guard to Vietnam, would he had made the same choices? Would he even remember after bender lasting that long? By comparison - Nixon knew where his authority ended.
Today, we have a new President. Our chickens are roosting. Face it. Just one of them - Bin Laden was not a chicken. He was a rooster of our own making because we were having a dust up with the former USSR and when they bailed, we did too. That particular rooster did not like that much. Yet, we silence those who would embrace the true American way of decency on truth? Now we have ads to deal with these chickens to recruit via trickery? Shame. They were roosting while our poster child for attention deficit disorder in chief focused on nonsense in Operation Contrived War on Iraq and created more terrorists, more debt, and more chickens. Cause and effect.
Yet, W. is gone and here we are with slick ads pandering to young adults which I doubt the SEC will be investigating these types of ads for false or being misleading. What is the likelihood the target audience of the 18 year kid would actually be doing National Guard duty as portrayed? There was not disclaimer saying Results not Typical. At least they should change the name and call it International Guard. That's the danger of a single source, single payer, single anything. Maybe they should have a voice over of likelihood causes of death, including poor policy? Congress declares war. Something we have seemed to have forgotten.
Yet, the movie left the audience with an important message as the hero sought to write his final high school essay about Courage and Honor. He found that one can have courage and die a pointless death, one without meaning. But to have honor when doing so gives courage meaning. One can only hope that our leaders have honor and we know our previous leadership were in short supply of this. We should not be so complacent. We should question our leadership. That is distinctively American.
