In a Seattle Times article about the possible renaming of Safco Field, there was a picture of the team standing as part of the Salute to Armed Forces Night. This ubiquitous link between sports and the military is seldom questioned, and so, this “subtle” recruiting continues.
Father’s Day is this weekend. Several years ago, at the same time of year, I wandered over to the Father’s Day exhibit at the downtown Seattle Barnes and Noble. The stack of books was a tribute to war, with all of the books being about past wars or weapons.
I went to Customer Service to ask whether this is really how they saw fathers. The Customer Service rep told me that the holiday displays were determined by the main office, and he gave me a phone number. I called, and spoke to someone who said that the displays were different for different kinds of places: as we in Seattle have so many military bases around us, we are deemed to be military-friendly and get the military books.
Otherwise, we might have had books for fathers with families and emotions, as I saw later in a Manhattan Barnes and Noble Father’s Day display.
Recruiting and militarism cannot be separated.