Dallas airport passengers silently salute the return of a fallen hero | Hacker News Reader

Dallas airport passengers silently salute the return of a fallen hero

globalnews.ca

12 pointswallflower15 comments

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"?

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.

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."

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.

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/

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.

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.

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.

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...

I suspect there are a variety of reasons for respecting or promoting military (including some cynical ones), but I'd like to say a few you might agree are positive:

* Especially in some areas, there's a positive idea of service and duty, and wanting to do good, and some people join up to the military for that reason, and others support it for that reason. (Even if you disagree with some military actions or practices, you can still understand that people might be motivated to join by admirable ideas.)

* I've heard that, as US people returned from the Vietnam War, some were met with animosity and condemnation. I can't fully imagine what it was like to experience horrors of war, and then also be rejected when you come back home. Separate from all the other questions of wars, I think we realize that treatment of people returning home was very wrong, and don't want to do that to anyone.

* The US generally values some kinds of heroism. For example, firefighters have been revered since before 9/11, and not for any cynical reasons I can think of. I don't know how this compares to other countries, but I speculate there might be some overlap of reasons between US respect for firefighters and warfighters.

No need to get out the pitchfork for this title, anyway. This appears to be a Canadian website, and every reputable American source I could find seems to use "veteran" or similar.

The BBC actually does use "hero" albeit slightly differently.

BBC: "Hero's welcome for deceased Vietnam War veteran"

---

New York Times: "Colonel Killed in Vietnam War Finally Came Home. His Son Flew the Plane."

CBS Dallas: "Navy Veteran Travels Cross Country Sharing Fallen Service Member's Stories"

ABC News: "Airport in Dallas pays tribute as pilot flies home the remains of Vietnam veteran father"

I was in a US airport a couple of years ago and one of the stores was taking charity donations for military veterans as an optional 10% surcharge on purchases. I get a very disapproving look from the cashier on opting out for not "supporting our troops"... I'm not even American.

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. "

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.

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.

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

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