war hero brainwashing
Marina remembers taking her kids to private swimming classes where the old guy in charge - a war hero, naturally, as they all made themselves out to be -- had a plaque on his office wall saying ‘old age and treachery beat youth and enthusiasm any day’.
“At the time I thought it odd, but being a dumb Boomer, raised by these guys to respect everything about them, I chose to see it as funny rather than a true statement of his attitude,” says Marina. “But right now, that plaque haunts me because it was a blatant sign, in the form of a sign, telling me exactly what that guy stood for – like, ‘I’m a pedophile, so what?’ – and I’m deeply ashamed for being so brainwashed by the war hero myths that I didn’t trust my own instinct, if not my own eyes.”
“Now that I’m old myself, I realize that these guys are still in positions of entrenched power, behind the scenes, fraudulently blaming my generation, rather than theirs, for trashing the world, promoting endless wars and sacrificing endless young lives for their own glory and profit.”
“I believe that most of them are frauds who sat out WWII at desk jobs – or merely supported the war effort in vital agricultural, mining or factory work – and never saw combat,” says Marina, “and yet they’ve milked the war for all it’s worth for over 60 years – totally overshadowing every human achievement before and after – and have consequently lived the life of Riley at everyone else’s expense.”
“Now 80+, these guys are becoming more treacherous than ever,” says Marina. “I fear that if they cannot succeed in prolonging their lives for another 20 plus years by diverting more medical funds and community support their way, then the generation that unleashed the atomic bomb is unlikely to pass on without unleashing another monumental horror in order to maintain their exalted position in history forever.”
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