# The fetishfication of the military in sporting events **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 26, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834 "2015-05-26T00:20:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Teach-me-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a4c791/32.png) [@Teach-me-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teach-me-not)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/21 "2015-05-27T16:17:39Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > It’s Armed Forces Day! Oooh, the troops! It’s Memorial Day! Oooh, the troops! It’s Independence Day! Oooh, the troops! It’s Veterans Day! Oooh, the troops! Enough! What’s next, thanking the troops for Christmas? Well, we do have an ongoing War on Christmas, but I doubt the military is involved. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/22 "2015-05-27T16:22:04Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Why? > > And please, please, PLEASE, don’t try and argue that “they are keeping us safe”. Yeah, why? People today chose the military as a career. It’s not like they are forced to serve. It’s not a “sacrifice” they had to make. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/23 "2015-05-27T16:33:10Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Why? > > And please, please, PLEASE, don’t try and argue that “they are keeping us safe”. Sorry doublepost ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/24 "2015-05-27T16:38:47Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Emmm, don’t wanna start a GD, but no. Yes, there are a lot of people with important jobs, but serving your country in military combat is in a class all by itself (and _above_ the others). Sure, it’s a great thing to be willing to go in harm’s way for our sake. But they haven’t actually done so for decades. The guys who spilled blood in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq did so in vain. In the end, it didn’t do shit for us. I applaud their being willing to go in harm’s way for us, and they are indeed going in harm’s way, but it isn’t for our benefit. I appreciate more the guys who risk getting shocked to restore my power when it goes out, the guys who get black lung mining coal so my power stays on, the guys who pick up my trash and maintain our roads, the air traffic controllers who make sense out of the massive numbers of planes and direct them to safety every day, the list goes on. If you on your own volition joined the army and went over and got shot at in Iraq, well bully for you but I didn’t ask you to go and it didn’t do any of us a damn bit of good. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/25 "2015-05-27T16:42:14Z")
I think another reason this happens so often at sporting events is that the teams consist of healthy young men. Most of these athletes would make great soldiers, but instead they’re playing games. The tradition of singing the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events started during World War I. There was public criticism of organized baseball for using some of the country’s fittest young men for sports while the country was at war. MLB started playing the national anthem at games to offset this criticism (“See, we really are patriotic!”). I don’t remember any similar criticism of professional sports after 9/11, but everyone involved has to be aware that they’re doing something relatively trivial while something serious is going on, and that the athletes (and many of the spectators) could have gone to fight the wars if they’d felt like it. All the displays of respect for the military are a kind of defense mechanism. As for that “stupid peanuts and crackerjacks song,” at least “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” has a direct connection with the baseball games where it’s performed. Finally, the word is “fetishization,” not “fetishfication.” ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/26 "2015-05-27T17:05:55Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I don’t even see it as ‘fetishification’ at all, merely respect. Depends on how far it goes. The last few years, I’ve gone to a local MLS Soccer game for July 4th. They have a halftime presentation where the family of a soldier who was killed is given a painting of the guy done based on photos. All well and good to that point. But last year, the guy running it just went way over the top with his speech, it honestly started veering way into “martyr to the cause” type talk for my comfort. Then he tried to lead us into a rousing “U-S-A” chant. Really, that’s a fine chant at the Olympics or whatever, but when commemorating the death of a soldier? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/27 "2015-05-27T17:13:36Z")
It’s not just America that does this. This weekend, I watched a wrestling PPV from Mexico City which opened with a good 10 minute sequence where an entire military color guard and orchestra marched onto the stage, unfurled a giant Mexican flag, and performed a fanfare followed by the national anthem. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/28 "2015-05-28T13:29:59Z")
Like I said, not gonna start a GD, and I can’t really respond much without doing that. All I can say is regardless of the ‘big picture’ outcome of any particular theater of war, I respect someone’s desire to serve my country in the military and acknowledge that above anything else. And I acknowledge that it is most definitely not the easiest of chosen paths, but one of the more difficult. To me this is all just self evident… ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/29 "2015-05-28T13:33:46Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I acknowledge that it is most definitely not the easiest of chosen paths, but one of the more difficult. To me this is all just self evident… I wouldn’t say that. Oftentimes people join the military because of lack of opportunity in the private sector. Not everyone can get into college, not everyone can afford to go, not everyone has a marketable skill. For many, the military is a career choice of necessity. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/30 "2015-05-28T13:39:59Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It’s not just America that does this. This weekend, I watched a wrestling PPV from Mexico City which opened with a good 10 minute sequence where an entire military color guard and orchestra marched onto the stage, unfurled a giant Mexican flag, and performed a fanfare followed by the national anthem. It is slowly creeping in to British culture. When Wayne Rooney earned his 100th cap for England there was a military official there at the presentation for absolutely no reasons whatsoever. I seem to remember Tke Guardian commenting on this. [http://images.dailystar-uk.co.uk/dynamic/58/photos/801000/620x/165801.jpg](http://images.dailystar-uk.co.uk/dynamic/58/photos/801000/620x/165801.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/31 "2015-05-28T13:43:52Z")
Found it. [http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2014/nov/15/england-v-slovenia-euro-2016-qualifier-live](http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2014/nov/15/england-v-slovenia-euro-2016-qualifier-live) > [@](#): > > Before the anthems, Wayne Rooney, children in tow, is presented with two commemorative caps by Sir Bobby Charlton. One is from the FA, the other is from Fifa. Couldn’t they have stumped up for a £16,000 watch instead? A cap seems a bit stingy. You never see anyone actually wearing their caps. A soldier also accompanied Charlton on to the pitch. I’m not sure why. The militarisation of sporting events is very weird. And a few minutes later … > [@](#): > > A soldier, though. Why? For what purpose? Maybe, instead of a golden cap, Rooney could have been presented with a giant poppy - or, even better, he could have played the game dressed as a poppy. ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/32 "2015-05-28T13:50:57Z")
Doesn’t bother me, and I don’t think it’s a heavy lift for anyone to take 5 mins out of a sporting event to hear a “thanks”. Regardless of the reasons folks went into any job, the job they do is difficult and in many ways necessary (not debating a particular theater of war - just that a standing military is important to our country). To be honest though, I would prefer my retired benefits to not be f’ed with and the VA hospitals to be better run and funded, and you can keep the speeches. But that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/33 "2015-05-28T14:52:03Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > I think another reason this happens so often at sporting events is that the teams consist of healthy young men. Most of these athletes would make great soldiers, but instead they’re playing games. As you point out this made a degree of sense during the World Wars when there was a draft, and a healthy young man not in uniform invited questions as to why the hell he wasn’t. It’s also of course the case that in 1943, 99% of professional baseball and football players would have been Americans. (99% of pro hockey players were Canadians, who of course were in the same boat.) Today, however, the military is a smaller, more professionally focused organization that by choice uses only volunteers, so in effect there is no real place for Mike Trout or Russell Wilson in the armed forces. There are enough soldiers, sailors and airmen without Mike and Russell signing up. Truly, the current trend DOES feel like a degree of fetishization, one that didn’t really exist in, say, 1945, where has as been pointed out most people just wanted the war to be over and to stop thinking about it; of course, you also had the fact that since so many able bodied young men HAD served, it was just sort of a common thing, as opposed to now when veterans are a much smaller subset of the population. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834/34 "2015-05-28T15:10:15Z")
Going on for much before 9/11 Every Olympics opening ceremony that I can remember (since Barcelona) had at least some involvement of the host country’s military. Usually a marching[band and in a flag](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/thumb/msid-15469729,width-640,resizemode-4/the-british-palace-guards-during-the-closing-ceremony.jpg)raising ceremony. [Guardsman with the European Cup](http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01877/guards_1877378i.jpg) for another example. Military look good, can put on a fine show and don’t cost extra. Use them. Its been going on for some time. EVen much before 9/11 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fetishfication-of-the-military-in-sporting-events/720834.md?page=1)