Just my take: A one finger salute to the troops

We don’t really pay our veterans and active military members respect for their service, we pay them lip service.

We thank them for profusely for serving and make big showy displays of our appreciation as they go off to die in horrible places so we can enjoy sports on Sundays and eat pizza with cheese in the crust and a dipping sauce.

But that’s all we do.

We had heard for some time that the “military appreciation” celebrations held at professional sporting events were being bought and paid for, but it recently blew wide open when we learned that most of these were completely staged and pre-packaged PR stunts that your favorite teams are getting paid to put on. In a Senate report released this past Wednesday, it was finally revealed that the Pentagon had been spending “frivolously” to have staged military appreciation days before professional baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer games. And teams have raked in more than 9 million dollars of your money while pretending to care about those who serve our country.

According to Deadspin, the NFL team that accepted the most money for this “Paid Patriotism” was the Atlanta Falcons, followed closely by the Patriots ironically enough. The greediest MLB team was the Atlanta Braves, and in a move that should surprise no one, the worst offender by a wide margin in the NHL was the Minnesota Wild.

No one should be shocked by this: professional sports teams are notoriously greedy and it should be no surprise that they are charging big bucks to hold faux appreciation ceremonies under the guise of caring about military members. Still, this is gross even by professional sports’ standards.

Every square inch of a baseball diamond, football field or hockey rink is worth money and I don’t have a problem with that because a sports team is there to make money and provide you with a good time. But what we’re sold is the tear-jerking, pomp and circumstance of honoring people who’ve risked their lives for our country, when it’s really as hollow as a waste management company sponsoring the fourth inning trivia contest.

The various military branches should be ashamed that they’ve cheapened the service of Americans this way. It’s dirty and dishonorable because it tugs at the heart strings of the people in the stands who paid for it. And the people in the line of fire who will pay for it. This is pure America: a disgraceful money making scam served up to all of us because they assume we’re too dumb and fat to do anything about it. Maybe we are.

But it’s really the teams that should truly be ashamed. These extremely wealthy organizations have fooled the American public into thinking they were doing something good for these people but instead wouldn’t lift a finger without having some cash floated their way.

No matter how you feel about the military, this should sicken you. You don’t have to endorse any war to not feel at least the smallest twinge of appreciation for someone honored at one of these games who risks their life so you can keep filling your huge SUV with $2.25 gasoline. Teams treat their players like a disposable commodity, so it should be no surprise we treat our citizens who agree to go off and die for our “freedom” the same way. Just another thing to make money off of.

When the soldiers came back from Vietnam, they were spit on and called baby killers but the American public ended up learning a valuable lesson from this awful era in US history on how to treat those who served. We now see that, despite whatever dumb war our politicians involve us in, we shouldn’t blame the soldiers who willingly go off to die while doing the bidding of these awful people in Washington. And what we thought was a refusal to let this happen again, was really a cheap ploy squeezed dry by wealthy team owners without an ounce of shame in their foul souls.

How does the 65 year old guy who served his country feel, as the troops are “honored,” about this completely bogus, reality show event? I’m sure he’s disgusted because what he thought was a genuine salute to people like him, is really as fake as the cheese on the nachos. Teams should either stop accepting money for this or just stop doing it altogether.

The way veterans are cast aside after they return from fighting these wars is a huge problem that is only getting worse. If people really wanted to honor military members, they would ensure they had health care and opportunities when they returned to their regular life. And if sports teams want to make amends for this horrendous PR disaster, they’ll take some of this money they made off of phony celebrations and put it toward this cause.

Sports in America should walk side by side with the people who protect this country and give their lives for it on a daily basis. But for professional sports team to accept money for something like this and pretend to care, we might as well go back to spitting on them.