
Dallas airport passengers silently salute the return of a fallen hero - wallflower
https://globalnews.ca/news/5742432/returning-soldier-dallas-airport-vietnam-veteran/
======
Tomte
I'm all for honoring the dead and paying respects when a coffin goes by, but
the American obsession with soldiers as heroes is truly disturbing.

What's wrong with titling the article "...the return of a fallen veteran"?

~~~
lotsofpulp
Many Americans don’t possess the critical thinking skills to realize the
fetishization of US military is part of propaganda for a variety of reasons
such as supporting military industrial complex, recruitment and cheaper labor
for military, and creating an us vs them mentality that can be exploited if
someone crosses over the “patriotism” line.

Real patriotism would be participating in local government organizations and
voting. I’m also in favor of mandatory conscription for every citizen to get
them to start caring about their country, instead of hanging a flag and
holding their hand on their chest while someone sings a song.

~~~
vinay427
This is a Canadian publication, and as you might note in my other sibling
comment, most every reputable American source I could find used "veteran"
rather than "hero."

~~~
lotsofpulp
Ignoring this specific article, there is still an excessive obsession with
military in the US that I don’t see in any other developed “western” country.

~~~
austincheney
To be fair other developed countries, with exception to China, do not spend
what the US spends on its military as a percentage of their GDP. Many NATO
members, for example, contribute less than their required percentage of GDP on
national defense.

[https://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-
trump/](https://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/)

There really does seem to be a correlation with the supposed _excessive
obsession_ of a nation's military praise to the percentage of funding allotted
to that military. I don't consider praise to be excessive obsession though.

~~~
lotsofpulp
There’s praise, and then there is national anthems at every sports game,
military jet flyovers, military personnel standing at the side of sports games
or holding a huge flag, people caring about kneeling or what others do during
national anthems, etc. All obviously recruitment tactics.

Especially when many times, it’s been proven that your country is the
aggressor working in the interest of profit for private entities.

I’m as patriotic as anyone else, I don’t need to sing a song or display a
piece of cloth with certain colors and designs on it. My problem is that if
you don’t bend over for these meaningless gestures, then you get branded as
unpatriotic or worse.

~~~
austincheney
The national anthem is not a military symbol or related to the military and
neither is the national flag. Perhaps interpretation of symbols is the cause
of this confusion.

> My problem is that if you don’t bend over for these meaningless gestures,
> then you get branded as unpatriotic or worse.

I suggest worrying less about what ignorant strangers think.

~~~
lotsofpulp
They are when they’re used as advertisements at the beginning of a sports
game. And it’s necessary to worry about what ignorant strangers think if you
want to win in politics, or end up in a situation like this:

[https://myfox8.com/2019/08/06/man-accused-of-
fracturing-13-y...](https://myfox8.com/2019/08/06/man-accused-of-
fracturing-13-year-olds-skull-for-not-removing-hat-during-national-anthem/)

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HugoDaniel
How many vietnamese did he kill ?

Did he bomb them with napalm ?

"One cannot fathom what it must be like to wait half a century for closure, or
what this moment must have been like for his family. "

~~~
marak830
As someone who's uncle was conscripted - and died - I had a few minutes of
trying to figure out whether to upvote or down.

It was an interesting few minutes. For the first time, I tried to imagine him
as if he was say a Jew in Germany 1940's.

I can understand my families feelings for losing him, but the sheeer amount of
... Well you know, over there.

I'm only writing this as I cannot really figure which way to vote. As a family
member(or in this stories case: countryman), I appreciate their service, as an
outside viewer. The shit that happened was the opposite of what I stand for.

Perhaps this is more of a conversation starter, I'd appreciate and, I think
would be interesting, to see the arguments on either side of this.

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lordnacho
Ken Burns' Vietnam is on Netflix.

Watch it and you'll think it was a totally unnecessary war, fought despite the
Americans knowing they wouldn't win, escalated repeatedly against all sense,
by various administrations that knew nothing about the local political
landscape, and ending with the Americans leaving their allies to fend for
themselves.

He even talks about how election politics entered the peace negotiations and a
variety of other disgraceful episodes, both big (My Lai) and small (the
ambassador not wanting to cut down the tree in the embassy for the
helicopters).

The saddest parts are maybe the interviews with the soldiers themselves, for
the most part pawns in a game they were too young to understand.

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kwhitefoot
Odd use of fallen. A fallen hero is usually one who has fallen from grace.

