Philip Giraldi calls out the NFL for shamelessly parroting the “fighting for our freedom” trope in order to capture market share:
When I was in uniform back in 1968 through 1971, no one ever came up to me and thanked me for my service, which is just as well as I wouldn’t have known how to respond. Servicing what? I was drafted. And I cannot recall anyone ever calling a returning Vietnam vet a “hero” or a “warrior.” If someone had he or she would have been met either with a blank look or hostility, the comment being judged to be sarcastic. Fighting a war in Vietnam that was so obviously completely screwed up, making no sense to anyone involved, was hard to rationalize.
Service currently in Afghanistan or previously in Iraq has also created a sense of cynicism among those actually called on to do the fighting. The NFL announcers claim that the troops are making America safer, but it would be difficult to imagine that anyone on the ground in Afghanistan actually believes that, leading to the inevitable conclusion that the slogans are little more than pablum being fed to the American television audience to make everyone feel comfortable about America’s wars.
