As we celebrate Veterans Day tomorrow, Nov. 11, I join in paying tribute to the men and women who have served our nation in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard in foreign combat, domestic emergencies, humanitarian missions and logistical, training and personnel support here at home. We Americans will hear and read high-sounding rhetoric tomorrow—all aimed at giving well-deserved credit to those who have served in harm’s way
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Our veterans, young and old, will be applauded in towns and cities throughout the country, treated as twice-citizens who are willing to leave the safety and security of their homes and families to serve in the military in places where the only certainty is extreme danger and deprivation. These foreign locales carry names hard to pronounce and cultures even harder to understand.
Unfortunately, I approach this Veterans Day with some disappointment and a tinge of cynicism. Last week, I read about a report entitled “Tackling Paid Patriotism,” assembled by Arizona Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain. The report states that the military has spent $6.8 million on what it calls paid patriotism since 2011, as manifested in what would seem to the public to be sincere tributes at sporting events, but in some instances resulting from financial contracts.
For example, according to the Flake-McCain report, the Maryland National Guard paid the Baltimore Ravens $534,500 in fiscal years 2013 and 2014 as part of what a team spokesman said was a military recruitment effort that included video advertisements on the M&T Bank Stadium video screens, the team’s website and radio broadcast, as well as a booth on the Ravenswalk. Ravens players also wore a Maryland National Guard patch on its practice jerseys.
The congressional report focused on an $89,500 order for 30,000 co-branded rally towels and 20,000 co-branded hats. In addition, the report showed that the Department of Defense paid for tributes that included national anthem performances, ceremonial first pitches, puck drops, color guard presentations and enlistment ceremonies—all at well-attended and often-televised professional sports events, with a demographic that I assume comprises millions of men and women aged 18-25.
As a former officer in the Maryland National Guard, well aware of recruiting and retention pressures, I can well understand why the Defense Department would choose professional sports venues to publicize the Armed Forces and hopefully generate a constant flow of quality recruits. Advertising is crucial to the corporate and military worlds. For years, I have marveled at the utter excellence of the Marine Corps commercials on TV. I thought that civilian companies could learn some lessons from the Marine Corps ads, which basically ask viewers, “Are you good enough to join our military force?” Simply, the advertising them dares and entices at the same time.
So, the question I now have to ask based on the report about paid patriotism is when are the touching tributes sincere—translated, no payment—and when are they staged and paid for, as if they were purely emotion-driven entertainment?
My experience as a Guard officer who often dealt with community groups and sports teams is that outside groups sought us, particularly on patriotic holidays or on occasions when our troops returned from the first Gulf War or a wartime deployment. We paid nothing, offering our people an opportunity to bathe in the glory of widespread commendation and providing the sports teams, for example, a venue to show off their patriotism—and earn public praise.
At the risk of seeming naïve and overly critical, I find the report, “Tackling Paid Patriotism” discouraging. I despair of the manipulation of public emotion through paid tributes. While I fully understand and support paid recruiting efforts in the form of videos and even products such as hats and towels, I believe that the Defense Department has crossed the line of propriety in staging recognition of returning combat soldiers, enlistments and extensions and presentation of the National Anthem. Paid patriotism has spawned painful pessimism.
Tomorrow, on Veterans Day, we can spend time, not money to pay tribute to our family members, friends and neighbors for having served our country in time of need and doing so with courage and expertise. Our volunteer service-members allow all of us to feel proud of our military forces and the difficult and demanding missions they undertake throughout a world threatened increasingly by terrorists, intent on sowing disorder through violence often imposed on innocent people.
As I bring this column to an end, I pay tribute to a wonderful exhibit of World War II photographs at the Oxford Community Center. These photos, either taken by Norman Harrington,a combat-journalist and well-known Talbot County photographer, or developed by him from canisters of undeveloped film discovered by Harrington at the “Eagle’s Nest,” Adolph Hitler’s chalet retreat at the peak of Kehlstein Mountain in Bavaria, Germany, beautifully capture the war in Europe and Hitler and cronies at play. I only wish the exhibit showed even more of Harrington’s wonderful black-and-white photographs and the ones developed from undeveloped film at the lovely mountain getaway.
Thank you, veterans, for making our world a better one.
Columnist Howard Freedlander retired in 2011 as Deputy State Treasurer of the State of Maryland. Previously, he was the executive officer of the Maryland National Guard. He also served as community editor for Chesapeake Publishing, lastly at the Queen Anne’s Record-Observer. In retirement, Howard serves on the boards of several non-profits on the Eastern Shore, Annapolis and Philadelphia.
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