Why does this remind me this silly poem?
On one bright day in the middle of the night
Two dead boys got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
The games (and the teams) are comprised of students (cadets and midshipmen; officers in training) at the Army’s and Navy’s service academies. I don’t think that they are considered to be active-duty military while still at the academies (but I could be wrong); they aren’t commissioned as officers until graduation.
I briefly entertained the idea of attending the Naval Academy when I was a teenager. Midshipmen are required to join at least one athletic team. It can be interscholastic or intramural, and as I recall there were several dozen options available. I suppose it helps build camaraderie and esprit de corps.
I know all that. I was just mocking Hegseth et al’s obsession with war and manliness, and asking why future warriors were wasting their time and money on kid’s games, instead of practicing killing people, like they should be doing.
This is football, featuring manly men slamming into each other, in a sport that’s filled with war metaphors and terminology. The sport occupies a particular place in the American psyche, and most fans really don’t see it as “a kid’s game.”
You ain’t kidding. As George Carlin put it,
As for Trump and his Army-Navy game promotion, my guess is that he sees watching that game as somehow promoting patriotism and revering the military. But I doubt that people are going to tune in if it’s the only football offering at its time. People will find other things to watch, or indeed to do.
I can see other sports leagues ignoring his directive. I doubt that the NHL or NBA will pay any attention. They’re going to stick with their schedules, even if their games conflict with the Army-Navy game.
You might be surprised.
The last two seasons, the Army-Navy Game was CBS’s most-watched college football game of the season, above the network’s viewership for games which featured more prominent, higher-ranked teams. It had 7.8 million viewers for the 2025 game, and even more (9.4 million, an all-time high for the game) in '24.
The fact that it airs on a day when there’s little else in the way of college football undoubtedly helps, as there are a lot of football fans who really want to watch football, even if the game itself is between two teams they don’t really care about.
But in a totally straight way, just like Top Gun.
It’s also football where manly men strut around naked in a communal shower room, pat each other on the behind, and wear super tight pantyhose breeches no matter what the weather.
Also preserving their precious bodily fluids?
I like your sense of humors.
He’s stealing my cat-herding technique.
The way to have an obedient cat is to order them to do what they’re about to do anyways. “Hey, you! Jump on that couch! Good cat! Now lick your butthole! Good cat!”
For all it’s bluster about manly men, the military has the most homosexual subtext of anyone, including a NYC bathhouse and the Village People! Or the Village people at a bathhouse.
I expect that Kegsbreath will make wrestling the new manly man sport in the military.
I’ve seen that happen in the Haunted Mansion, so it can’t be completely false.
Going back to the original Olympic version where they were nude.
As the ancient Greeks knew, there’s no contradiction between homosexuality and manliness.
To clarify: I don’t have a problem, with gays, manliness, or gay maniliness. But the military sure does! They’re so deathly afraid of homosexuality that it seemed you couldn’t be promoted out of being a junior officer without having a wife, because, you might be…gasp…gay! A wife you would leave for months at a time on a base while you go to sea or TDY, leaving her on her own. Or you beat her. And then when you retire, you get divorced in 3 months because you find out you can’t stand each other. But at least the military is convinced you’re straight, so it’s all good.
When I heard this from my extremely worldly and knowledgeable older brother, there were two more lines:
Two deaf policemen heard the noise
They came and shot the two dead boys
Carry on.
Because they would.