All right, so I was walking through the local dollar store yesterday in order to find some kind cheap necklace. What can I say, I was in a jewelry mood.
Anyway, the dollar store is rather disorganized. There are earrings next to disinfectant next to the toys. It therefore follows that I had to walk through the toy section in order to see if there were any necklaces. As I walked past the rows of different toys, I saw a most. . .interesting sight:
A “peacekeeper” doll. Dressed in attire that any sane person would describe as military garb. I believe there was even a plastic gun included. Ten years ago, this would have been called a “soldier” doll, a discount rate G.I. Joe.
For some reason, this pissed me off. I’m not sure why.
Maybe because I find the notion of a “peacekeeper” with a gun to be a complete oxymoron.
Maybe because I come from a family where I had two grandparents serving in WW2 and a father who saw the worst of Vietnam.
Maybe because I’m sick of ridiculous “fuzzifiy-ing” of military matters.
Jesus Christ. My father was a soldier. Soldiers have protected this country, and others. They wore fatigues, and carried guns.
CALL THE FUCKING DOLL A SOLDIER!
I mean, what the hell do you think the kids are going to do? “Hey, Dakota, I’m going to be PEACEKEEPER Joe. You can be PEACEKEEPER Bob. Let’s pretend we’re on a mission to Felchdonia, where we pretty much just walk around enforcing random peacekeeping things that we know NOTHING about because we are 7 year-olds whose parents bought us third-rate action figures at a cheap-ass dollar store.”
No, they aren’t going to do that. They are going to embark on a “blow up stuff” mission, a “fighting” mission, an “infiltration” mission. Why the HELL would we call that peacekeeping? Why don’t we just call that doll a “soldier”?
What is that? “Soldier” is a dirty word? So is “G.I.”?
Screw that. SCREW that. As I said before: my father was a soldier. A G.I. Sergeant or something-or-other in the army. Got some pretty good medals. And as much as I dislike that guy, I see what he did as pretty much his duty. I don’t think the Vietnam war was a good idea, but villifying soldiers because of that–horrible.
I’ve heard enough about the crap my dad had to deal with when he got home.
I’m sick of seeing war portrayed as peacekeeping.
This pisses me off.
And I never did find any necklaces. :mad: