Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) went to Iraq, came back to his constituents and told a war story about how he wanted to go to the Green Zone gym and was turned away by a “two-bit security guard”. That would be, of course, a servicemember or contractor who has spent months in a war zone away from their family.
I am not proud to say the following words:
This reminds me of an old JAG episode.
Yes, my secret vice. Right up there with The Love Boat or Fantasy Island. I do not own the DVDs.
The episode, This Just In From Baghdad, featured a Department of Defense official who wants to play weekend warrior and winds up being a burden on the soldiers and gets in the way of the mission. In the end he panics and runs out into the open, where he is gunned down by sniper fire.
In the real world, Rep. McHenry is not gunned down and has pretty much the lamest war story I have ever heard.
[I first saw the video on kimbaland. and followed her advice to tell McHenry that he is a two-bit Representative.]
In the past few weeks, the Navy Times has had an online ad with the teaser, “As a Christian in the Armed Forces, What Does Active Duty Mean to You?” I found it provocative, probably because I’ve been reading about the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
MRFF has not been able to convince the courts that there is a systemic DoD-condoned problem of religious intolerance but I can see why MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein believes that evangelicals are trying to “take over” the armed forces. It is an understatement to say that Weinstein, a former Air Force JAG, is a grandstander who can make his critics sound reasonable. On the other hand, there is no dispute that chaplains are only authorized to provide spiritual guidance and are not allowed to prosyletize and that some have disobeyed their orders.
It turns out that the ad is for a school that trains veterans — not active duty servicemembers — to become missionaries. Judging from their website, high-caliber weapons are apparently helpful in the program when the Bible is not enough.
Yesterday I was reading a little history about public support for World War II. It is remarkable how engaged people were in the war effort. At one point, home Victory Gardens produced 40 percent of the vegetables consumed in the United States!
During World War II, the Army had a contract with Warner Brothers to produce short educational cartoons for the troops. Featuring Private Snafu, “The Home Front” (1943) seems utopian when illustrating the war effort back home.
Contrast this to today where, at the national level, all I can think of is the Treasury Department issuing patriotic savings bonds in December 2001 at the same time we were being urged to spend money to make America stronger. If anything, the war has divided the country when it could have pulled us together in some positive ways.
Imagine if the country had been called to serve in a common effort, such as reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Maybe this is only plausible in hindsight but a national conservation effort could have tied nicely into today’s anti-global warming campaigns. Strange bedfellows, but all Americans united. Could it have happened?
As for Private Snafu, he was created by Frank Capra. Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel wrote several episodes and Mel Blanc provided his Bugs Bunny voice. As noted on Wikipedia, the cartoons were risque for the time and many of the other have racist depictions (by today’s standards) of Japanese and Germans.
If you’re a military blogger visiting this site, be sure to say hello: navalgazer (at) navalgazer.com.
I am still trying to figure out which other sites out there are very active. Milblogging.com seems like a decent portal. I apparently erred in joining a spouse web-ring (so ’90s!). Only a handful of the sites are active and most seem to have animated red roses that drop from the top of the page and then, as roses do, bounce around. Bad, but not bad enough to keep the link on this page! It is a weak defense but all I can say is that I was drawn in by that folksy logo and wanted that home-sewn website look.
