Well, we do have an ongoing War on Christmas, but I doubt the military is involved. 
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.
Sorry doublepost
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.
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.”
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?
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.
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…
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.
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
Found it.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2014/nov/15/england-v-slovenia-euro-2016-qualifier-live
And a few minutes later …
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.
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.
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 marchingband and in a flagraising ceremony. Guardsman with the European Cup 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