My real opinion of the Sears-Big Red One deal

[jmowreader]

I'm one of DU's veterans, so view what I say through that lens.

I think the deal between Sears and the Army, in which it put 1st Infantry Division-themed garments in every Sears (and probably Kmart--they're owned by the same company) in America, is good.

Some of y'all are thinking, "how could the Army do this to its veterans?" They've done it to a long time. Witness:

http://www.genjax.com/browse.cfm/2,234.html

General Jackson's is a military store in Fayetteville, NC. (It's what you might call an Army Surplus store, except they don't carry "surplus" but rather first-quality stuff directly from the manufacturer, and they're in direct competition with the Army Clothing Sales Store on Fort Bragg. Most of its customers are active duty military and most of the rest are retirees or other veterans.) They've carried t-shirts promoting Army units for a long time. The Army doing this is NOT new. What IS new is that now the clothes are in a national retailer.

This could be good or bad, and I think it's good. The ideals of the Army are good. Patriotism, honor, sacrifice...those things are all good. The atrocities that are being committed in our name by some members of the Army are NOT the Army's ideals; when President Obama replaces President Capone in January, I believe those atrocities will stop.

If the Army's smart about this, and their Public Affairs arm is very good, they'll require the vendor print a URL on the shirts...maybe the 1st Infantry Division's homepage on the Big Red One shirts, or the 82nd's URL if it's an All Americans shirt. Someone will go to it and learn a little about the sacrifices the soldiers made in the name of our freedoms.

You guys can think what you want, but I think when they release shirts with the logo of a division I was in (101st Airborne and 10th Mountain), I'll get one.