Yankee Go Home!

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I demand an immediate end to the US Military occupation of my TV set. They've garrisoned my TV set for over 10 years, and it is time for them to go home.
Every December, the media is swamped with insipid video clips of military personnel abroad sending greetings to their families in the US. I sincerely doubt their families ever see these clips, they'd have to phone home and tell their families when they will be on TV. That sort of defeats the whole point of these messages. Why don't they just phone, or write a letter, or send a photo or videotape, instead of wasting the public airwaves? With all the news in this world worth covering, they waste time with this? There is nothing particularly newsworthy about the simple fact that American soldiers are posted overseas during the holidays. Yes, it's sad to be away from your loved ones at the holidays, but it is hardly newsworthy. They knew this would happen when they enlisted.
These clips seem to have appeared during the first Gulf War, I don't recall ever seeing them before that time. I suppose the media thought they were helping the morale of the troops, but the clips continued after the war was over, and by now, they've become just another part of the droning militaristic propaganda machine.
It is now January 3rd and the local TV stations are still showing these clips. None of these clips come from soldiers in Afghanistan or the Gulf area, they're all from soldiers in cushy luxury postings like Japan or England. And most of them aren't messages to their family, the soldier usually appears on camera with his family, giving greetings to hometown friends.
Even worse are the obligatory Thanksgiving and Christmas news stories about the troops eating turkey and cranberries inside a tent in a battle zone. I want to see Thanksgiving stories about soldiers eating MREs in a foxhole because they were too busy in a firefight to make it back to camp for a turkey dinner. And I assure you, there are plenty of those stories, but nobody will ever hear them, they're too busy pumping out propaganda about happy little soldiers full of turkey.
Am I the only person on earth who watched Apocalypse Now, and remembers that Kurtz said the US could never win the Vietnam War, they were too soft because they were used to luxuries like beer and steak barbecues, even in a battle zone?

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This page contains a single entry by Charles published on January 3, 2003 12:03 AM.

2003: The Year of the Ram was the previous entry in this blog.

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