So, I logged into my Facebook account the other day (something I do fairly frequently) and I saw that the majority of my 2,458 ‘friends’ had replaced their status updates with something like this:
‘Charlie Sheen is all over the news because he's a celebrity drug addict while Soldier’s name, age; Soldier’s name, age; and Soldier’s name, age; were Soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention. Please honor them by posting this as your status for a little while.’
It’s a very real reminder that there is still a war going on overseas and moms, dads, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles and people’s children are making the ultimate sacrifice for freedom: their lives, the lives of their loved ones. Clearly, with the recent psychological and emotional breakdown of current celebrities (Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen), the media has forgotten about the Soldiers who are still deployed and fighting so the rest of us at home can enjoy such frivolities as … watching a sitcom star break down on national television, the news and through social media sites. Let’s break out the popcorn and fuel the celebrity narcissists who know exactly how to capture America’s attention through publicity stunt meltdowns. It was interesting for about a hot minute, only because I quote Mean Girls and grew up watching the Sheens.
And, look, already I’ve spent too many words mentioning the selfish, overpaid people whose continued ‘fame’ is bent on the mere mention of their names.
Seriously, I’m a military brat, my dad served over 20 years in the Army. My middle brother was in the Air Force and my youngest brother … well, he decided to go to college. I considered the military until I saw how much physical activity was required for morning PT. Not my thing. But it is the ‘thing’ for all of those who decided to join, those like my boyfriend and the Soldiers I work with everyday, who believe in something other than themselves and who continue to protect our rights and freedoms. Those are the ones who should get the spotlight, whose families should be thanked and, honestly, deserve a better paycheck than any celebrity or athlete. They are our heroes, like the kind you see in the movies, only for real. That would make them celebrities, too, right?
Wrong. There’s no red carpet welcome for them when they come home – if they come home at all.
According to the Defense Manpower Data Center, since Operation Iraqi Freedom started in 2003 until July 2010, over 4,000 (some Web sites claim over 6,000) American Soldier’s have lost their lives while deployed. This doesn’t include the coalition forces or civilian death toll (those numbers were pretty staggering). I know that there can’t be a story on every Soldier who has been killed in action or family member who has lost a Soldier, and I’m not even saying that the media hasn’t covered the war at all in recent months. What I am saying is that in the last few weeks that I turned on the news, all I heard about was the Sheen-ocalypse. Before that, it was Gaga-gate and even before that we had Tiger’s Woody. The only time it seems that a Soldier is in the news nowadays is if there’s an isolated incident of a bad choice that leads to fatalities.
Maybe to some, news of what’s going on in Iraqi-stan is played out. I know that the majority of the population tunes into the boob-tube for entertainment, to escape the reality of what’s going on in the world around them. They make television shows like Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, The Bachelor and American Idol: Auditions so that we can rejoice in our lives not sucking as bad as those that seem to suck more ass than a bus seat. But when I turn on the news, I expect to hear about newsworthy topics, not an entire loop of CNN coverage of celebrity drama. Don’t get me wrong, I’m genetically predisposed to being drawn to gossip about folks whose lives mean absolutely nothing in the day to day of my own life. But there’s a time and a place for that: prime time television and E! News Daily.
To the men and women who have served and are still serving; to those who have lost their lives and to all their families, you guys are my superheroes and celebrities.
To the media: quit being douche-tubes; prioritize and realize there are too many angles to cover what’s going on with the military and actual newsworthy events. I know, I read about it every week in the military newspaper.
