Monday, March 04, 2002 :::
 

The Greatest (Imitation) Generation

Over my lunch break I saw that CNN was covering with the RETURN OF THE HEROES. By this I mean they had a camera crew out in San Diego waiting to interview naval personnel that just got back from points beyond. It was the most uninspiring 30 minutes of television since Ellen came out and turned her show into a hell-pit of overwrought and cliché gay jokes.

In the never-ending pursuit to place the mantle of Hero on even the most unspectacular of our citizenry, the camera crew broke up “hug chains” of families who haven’t seen each other since before this whole war got picked up by all the networks for the Fall Season. Once the naval soldier was pried from the loving embrace of his wife and the child he’s never seen in person, the vapid newsman with capped teeth and the unjustified sense of self worth asked him a string of the most pointless questions that have ever been devised…ever.

NEWSMAN: Can I ask you a few Questions?
NAVY MAN: Well I kinda wanted to see my family and…
NEWSMAN: Great! I must say…back after the War. Are you glad to be home?
NAVY MAN: Yeah, sure.
NEWSMAN: What was it like being it that hotbed of unrest and hate-inspired warfare against our nation’s principles?
NAVY MAN: Well, we just sort of drove around the ocean, read poems about crisis by a fourth grade class from Pond Scum, Florida, and then came home.
NEWSMAN: My God, the sacrifices you have made for our country. You ARE a Great American Hero

This is an abridged version, but you get the idea.

I guess the media still has this amazing hard-on for the WWII generation. I know this was supposed to be a modern facsimile of those images of our boys coming back from fighting the hated Huns, pouring into the harbors looking for streamers to run through and girls to impregnate. Well, this didn’t even come close. It was just a convoy of 19 year old Hispanic kids coming back from a journey where the worst thing they’ll remember happening is that one Wednesday morning problems with the supply frigate forced them to have baked beans for breakfast, and the flatulence in close quarters that ensued.

Great Generations are crafted and molded by a world under siege where dictatorially energized superman, beaming with nationalist empowerment, grip the seams of the world and twist at it causing countless lives to fall into that breech. They are not made by dramatic filler music that backs a slide show of heart wrenching photographs meant to make the rabble feel noble. Keep in mind that a real war is a war where the causalities number too great for each to have its own feature on the evening news.

::: posted by Mike at 1:33 PM