"War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public.
The Pentagon recognizes the power of these celluloid dreams and encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars.
"...What does Hollywood get out of this 'deal with the devil'? Access to billions of dollars worth of military kit, from helicopters to aircraft carries, enabling filmmakers to make bigger and more spectacular battle scenes, which in turn generate more box office revenue. Providing they accept the Pentagon's advice, even toe the party line and show the US military in a positive light." ~AlJezeera
6 comments:
I"m not for politicizing war movies to reflect the modern "War on Terror" as some kind of "fight for our freedom" BS, but I like movies about men making sacrifices, doing what they have to do, going above and beyond the call of duty. We got enough badmouthing-the-military garabage movies back in the 70s and 80s disrespecting Vietnam soldiers from hippie Hollywood movie makers. Rambo was the first breath of fresh air for the man who fought in Vietnam since the war ended. We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson was probably the best Vietnam War movie to date. Movies about courageous soldiers are a good thing, not a bad thing.
btw, even in an unjust, unConstitutional War, you can have stories of brave men fighting and dying. Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders at San Juan heights. Joshua Chamberlain and his 20th Maine at Little Roundtop at Gettysburg. And, from a Mexican persepective, Jefferson Davis at Vera Cruz.
I'm finished with glory and war. Glory belongs to God only. The deepest sins in life abound in war. How about having your best friend's legs blown off from the knees down, running 30 feet and falling down dead? No; that's not glory.
Chamberlain slaughtered and killed men desperate for freedom. I'm more than certain that Davis later realized that Yankees had no more business in the Mexico than they did in the South. TR danced by the body of a dead Spaniard, went psycho after shooting a buffalo, even requested Congress give him the Medal of Honor for his one day activity at SJ Hill. Mark Twain after meeting him twice called him "clearly insane."
It's back to the Constitution: Only defensive wars here at our borders and go to war as a last resort.
David,
While much of what you say is true, my point was not to engage in a discussion of the right or wrong of this or that war but to illustrate that respect IS due to men who have fought bravely for what they believe to be right.
Joshua Chamberlain, while he fought on the wrong side, had this to say about the Confederates at Appomattox when he saw General John B. Gordon't army passing: "Our earnest eyes scan the busy groups on the opposite slopes, breaking camp for the last time, taking down their little shelter-tents and folding them carefully as precious things, then slowly forming ranks as for unwelcome duty. And now they move. The dusky swarms forge forward into gray columns of march. On they come, with the old swinging route step and swaying battle-flags. In the van, the proud Confederate ensign--the great field of white with canton of star-strewn cross of blue on a field of red, the regimental battle-flags with the same escutcheon following on, crowded so thick, by thinning out of men, that the whole column seemed crowned with red. At the right of our line our little group mounted beneath our flags, the red Maltese cross on a field of white, erewhile so bravely borne through many a field more crimson than itself, its mystic meaning now ruling all.
The momentous meaning of this occasion impressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;--was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?"
Both Confederate General Gordan and United States General Chamberlain were devouted Christian men. Gordon later said of Chamberlain that he was one of the "knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army".
I don't know if you've ever talked to a combat soldier face to face, I have. And regardless of what I think of the War in Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of what I think of Geo. Bush or Obama or the neocons; you can't help but repect that man and consider it an honor to shake his hand.
Sgt. Alvin York, a hero of WW1, was a Christian man and considered the war wrong. He was drafted. Yet when the battle engaged, he fought bravely doing what he had to do alongside the man next to him. We can and should repect men like this regardless of the politics behind the war itself.
If General Chamberlain, a Union General, can do this for us (him sincerely believing the Confederates in the wrong), should we do less for him? BTW, Chamberlain simpathized with the South during Reconstruction and resented the Radical Republicans
I was raised to respect even to the point of fascination with combat vets. NO MORE HONOR FROM ME. THEY ARE KILLING PEOPLE BY THE HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS. These are gutsy young kids. They aren't married, own nothing, know and understand even less. They have nothing to lose.
I love York too, but he's a statist hero showing Wilson's war to be God's will, even the forced conscription. How about the120,000 boys who died and the untold millions who could have been born.
The whole thing's a mind game. Chamberlain is paraded before us in the movie. He complained in a letter to his wife how he didn't like warring against women and children but he did it. 50,000 southern civilians killed. Then came Reconstruction-ten years of brutal marxism. Lee said he'd have fought to the death if he'd had known what was coming. Next Sheridan, Grant, Sherman's annihilation of the American Indian. The Lincoln legacy of killing continued later in the Philippines with 100,000 to 200,000 deaths. We didn't need to nuc the Japanese civilians. We have become vile in the eyes of God. The Lord scatters the nation who delight in war.
1) You are throwing a pretty broad blanket over a lot of men. 2) you are still falling back on the policy and the politics and knocking the fighting men on the ground because of it.
They are NOT all gutsy young kids. Many are not all single. Many do have homes, property and families. They do have a better understanding of more than you may realize. I personally know 3 men who served in Iraq and Afghanistan all three of whom are married and two of them each have 3 children and the third is married and wants to have children.
You're right that the U.S. Military is a far cry from George Washington's Continental Army or even George S. Patton's Army. A lot of mercenaries, a lot of macho punks, a lot of dyke lesbian women and homosexual men (now more open since DADT has been lifted). The type that are as bad or worse than the scum of Lincoln's army. A lot of bad officers, a lot of bad leaders. Neither the moral nor the morality is what it should be. And the political leaders that run Washington DC that give orders are worse.
But this has to do with rotten and immoral policy (which God does condemn) not with the man on the ground who fights and dies on the field. You should NEVER condemn the men who fight these wars, whether they are just wars or not. Some are there because they made a career of being as soldier, some sincerely believe they are there doing some good (and on some level, they are, and God does smile on that), some are there because they felt it wrong to stay at home while their neighbor went off to risk his life, some even believe the war is the right thing to do as a whole and for that I don't condemn him as a soldier or as a person (even though I think they are wrong). Some may be brainwashed by propaganda, but they are good men.
Hear me: I DO HEAR WHAT YOU ARE SAYING in regard to policy, war crimes, sins of America and it's turning away from God. BUT, it is wrong to condemn the fighting man on the ground. If we do that then we are no different than the rotten immoral peacenik hippies of the Vietnam War era who spit on soldiers coming home calling them "baby killers" and worse.
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