War! Glorious War!
Wednesday January 29, 2020
According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study released in 2016 the US Government was spending over $1 Billion annually on Public Relations. Approximately $626 Million of that was used by the Department of Defense to fund its PR campaign glamorizing and supporting endless wars.
We see the propaganda everywhere. Fighter jets zoom over NFL stadiums on Sunday afternoons while a huge American flag is unfurled by uniformed military personnel. Billboards along the highway extoll the virtues of military service. Of course there is much, much more.
But what the public is rarely if ever shown is the tragic human carnage of our never ending wars and military adventurism. As a young boy in the 1960’s I saw firsthand the “glories” of war. I grew up close to McGuire Veterans Hospital on the Southside of Richmond, VA. My older brother and I would scavenge for discarded pop bottles to turn in for the deposit money and head to the PX at McGuire for ice-cream.
The hospital had been built hastily during WWII. In fact, it was built so fast that some of the wards were constructed to the lay of the land. Long hallways were inclined making it difficult for immobile patients to move. It was 1967 and the Vietnam War was heating up. Security at the hospital was very relaxed and my brother and I could roam the halls at will.
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