Honesty In The Military

War is terrible. To say "violence should be the last resort" seems too...open to interpretation. Violence should RARELY be considered an actionable option. I have, for quite some time, felt awkward during the commercials the military has been running for many years, but most recently their advertisements are not only misguided, they are plain wrong. I understand, you have to "sell your product" to the right demo, but (especially recently) things continue to get absurd.
The most recent series of Air Force ads really take the cake. They contain the phrase, "It's not science fiction, it's what the US Air Force does everyday." Here is one of the advertisements I'm talking about.
Really? Since when has the Air Force been performing daily rescue missions on Endor? No, US Military, it IS science fiction, and when you mix science fiction with recruiting what do you get? People who don't get what they signed up for. People sign up because it looks cool, I mean, who really wants the Flood taking over? Not me! Give me my mega blaster and lightsaber! Is that taking things too far? Well, it's about as realistic as the military's portrayal in that it's not honest. The recruiting tactics the military employs glorify war as if it is something we should pursue, not avoid.
I'd be foolish if I didn't mention our culture's fascination with violent media. First/third person shooters vary from bits that vaguely imitate reality to alien death camp zombie destruction.* We can't place all the blame on the military when the free market has done this to itself, but we can blame the military for joining in the misinformation.
Not only are we scarring the countries we have invaded, but our friends and family members are returning with medical issues that go beyond the physical. How can our returning friends be helped when the people who are helping them lose their own minds?
Yesterday's news has been more of the same song of senseless killing that needs to end. Let the military advertise/recruit based upon what it does, not how appealing they can make violence appear. Better yet, let's stop fighting these wars that cannot be won.

Peace.


*I've often thought what an as-realistic-as-a-video-game-can-get game would look like. People would probably hate it saying, "my character runs really slow and gets insanely tired after just 10 minutes of sprinting with his 100 lbs of gear" and "it takes sooo long to switch/reload guns" and "I got shot in the first 5 minutes and the game ended. I had to start over completely." My guess is that it wouldn't do very well on sales.

39

Sometimes I favour British english over American. And their accents. And their slang. But not their dentistry.