Is the Star-Spangled Banner your national anthem?

[grumpyduck]

38. Re: several posts above about our military

Last edited Sat Mar 3, 2018, 05:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching a series on Netflix, Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States. It starts right around WWI and then moves on to WWII and up to the present. And one of the themes it keeps coming back to is that every president since FDR (both Dems and Reps) has pushed the idea of our military being ginormous and how it needs to be to protect us. But the reality is that as a result we have indulged (my word, not Oliver's) in imperialism and wars all over the world. Now and then Oliver points to what Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex:" huge companies pushing arms sales in order to profit, kinda like Krupp in Germany many years ago. I'm sure I missed a lot, so I'm going to watch it again; it has really inspired me to read more US history, which I though was booooring in HS and college.

But we need to remember that our military only does what it's told. Sure some generals and admirals have been hawks (and some have been incompetent hawks), but, in general, they have to follow the direction given by the administration.

As far as the OP, I served in the military during the early 70s, and I had a number of friends who kept busting on me for being in the military. "How can you support this war?" and similar stuff. And I kept reminding them that I didn't support the war: I supported the country, and that the country I supported would be around long after Nixon and his crowd had rotted to dust in hell. So yeah, I stand for the anthem, and it's okay by me if the people next to me choose not to.