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COPYRIGHT 2005 Society for the Advancement of Education
YOU KNOW WHAT military recruiters are--the men and women who go to high schools and colleges and tell young people about their opportunities to serve their country in the military. Well, now there also are counter-recruiters who go to these schools and tell young people why they should not serve their country in the military. I had one of them on my radio show along with a college freshman--and she asked him a crucial question, one he could not answer intelligently: "What would the world be like without the American military?" He said it would be a "beautiful place." Of course, this only would be true if a world enslaved under Nazism or communism or Islamo-fascism could be called beautiful.
These counter-recruiters, by the way, have received such strong support from teachers unions in the Los Angeles Unified School District that it has been mandated that they be given equal access with military recruiters in those high schools. How have we come to such a pass? One of the important underlying factors is that the popular culture fundamentally has changed in the way it portrays the military and its mission.
Consider two movies released a few months back: "The Jacket" and "The Pacifier." The former began by showing American troops committing atrocities during the first Persian Gulf War and goes from there. What is fascinating is that it is one of the very few films that even make reference to that war at all. Remember, when the U.S. was involved in that conflict, it was not controversial like the recent war in Iraq. There was a huge worldwide coalition and the American public supported it more than any conflict since World War II, according to pollsters. Nevertheless, I can count on the fingers of one hand the movies that have made any reference to it at all. There was "The Manchurian Candidate" in the summer of 2004, in which there is an evil conspiracy involving brainwashing and torturing on the part of American businessmen; before that there was "Courage Under Fire" with Meg Ryan and Denzel Washington, which was about a friendly-fire incident, military cover-ups, and the mistreatment of a brave young female officer: and then there was "Three Kings," starring George Clooney, which also is about the corruption of the U.S. military and America's betrayal of its allies. So, here is an incredibly popular war and Hollywood hardly touches it. Moreover, Tinseltown's moviemakers never treat it in any sort of favorable light. Why?...
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