Jax vet blog: Camo, Dog Tags and "Support the Troops:" Military's Invasion of Popular Culture

Camouflage, Movies and Bumper Stickers (Crowley)

Popular Culture Adopts Military Trappings and Terms

HUMN240, E1WW – Fall 2014

Professor Harlan Schottenstein

John J. “Jack” Crowley

Nov. 2, 2014

Popular Culture was inundated by the influence of former soldiers after World War II. In the more-immediate past, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were similarly pervasive in movies, fashion and even colloquial phrases. I saw it evolve from afar via my iPhone and web access as I patrolled in 2012 near Sangin in Helmand Province.

I’ve been amused and impressed by popular culture’s reaction after returning to “The World” after my time outside “the wire.” Even that phrase turned into a television feature, figuratively referencing the boundary between a safe base and enemy territory.

“Stolen valor” even prompted a 2013 federal criminal statute. Political candidates and warrior-wannabes claimed wrongly to be decorated Navy SEALs, Marine Special Operations Command or Army Green Berets/Rangers. The Persons other than Grunts (called POGs) also wanted to play soldier at home with pop-culture paint-ball and AirSoft guns. They safely “hunt” each other wearing masks and protective gear. No blood, no death. Video games such as Call of Duty grew concurrently. I play them.

No body bags. Just hit reset and start over. Arguably shows such as AMC’s “Walking Dead” are an extension of overall dehumanization for people who have never held a dying comrade in their arms. They also reflect our fear of real-world terrorists.

World War II’s impact was most-profound on public popular culture. Television, formally invented in 1926, exploded in its influence. GIs came home, began working, and their wives shed the Rosie the Riveter role – or merged it – with having babies. More income meant the ability to afford a TV, as well a house. The Baby Boom resulted, and today they are America’s bell-curved demographic as the United States ages.

Television launched TV stars and action shows such as the “Lone Ranger,” or comedies like “I Love Lucy.” Stars such as James Arness played in shows like the western, “Gunsmoke.” Lucille Ball, Milton Berle and Jack Paar became household words. Paar’s “The Tonight Show” continues today with Jimmie Fallon. The mass media also made East and West Coast “move” closer. Los Angeles Dodger Jackie Robinson became a household name as he also simultaneously broke baseball’s color barrier.

War also affects the economy and thereby indirectly pop culture. World War II ended the Depression. Along the way, the Lend Lease Act had been pumping American war material into the Allies hands long before we declared war on Japan – and then Germany/Italy – after Pearl Harbor. After World War II, the Ohio History Connection reports, Columbus’ place in the housing boom took hold. The city was the home of Lustron Homes. An exhibit of such a prefabricated house is on display at the Ohio Historical Connection’s museum at 800 E. 17^th Avenue by the Ohio Fairgrounds.

In addition, many of the profound post-war popular culture impacts from Howdy Doody to Schwinn bicycles are on display and chronicled if you visit the museum or go online to http://www.ohiohistory.org/exhibits/ohio-history-center-exhibits/1950s

Through it all – and with recessions during the inter-war periods between WWII, Korea and Vietnam, America experienced great economic growth. Ex-warriors and their families beget voracious consumption. The racial integration of the armed services in 1947 by President Harry Truman’s Executive Action also was a popular culture phenomenon. As such, more blacks were drafted -- first in Korea, and then for Vietnam. Both wars were fought under America’s post WWII alliance with the newly effective United Nations’ South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO).

Civil Rights also grew slowly, then exploded in the 1960s, in part due to African-American demands for equality off the battlefield as well as on it. The Baby Boom simultaneously fed the economic growth also fueled by war production for our various wars, “police actions” (Korea) or “incursions” (Cambodia, where Americans chased Viet Cong from Vietnam, prompting the May 4, 1970 Kent State shootings.) College campuses then were engorged in the late 1960s and early 1970s by ex-combatants eager to use their GI Bill tuition and other benefits. These vets infused conscience into protests.

Anti-war activism fueled a popular-culture reaction manifested by heavy use of marijuana and psychedelics. It also infused what had been a British Invasion of the teen-era rock-music scene with unique sounds introduced by at least one former soldier. James Marshall Hendrix drifted to England after being mustered out of the Army Airborne for a jump-caused broken ankle/leg. He’d been “encouraged” to join up and go to Vietnam after a spate of West Coast car thefts near his native Seattle, Washington. He gravitated to guitar, learning to play a right-handed Fender Stratocaster upside down and backward in songs such as his signatures “Fire,” or “Purple Haze.” Jimi’s “Star-Spangled Banner” rocked the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival – though most people already left.

Once in Britain, Hendrix joined with Neil Redding and Mitch Mitchell to form the Jim Hendrix Experience. Other American rock innovators followed such as Jim Morrison and the Doors, or Janis Joplin and her Big Brother and the Holding Company. Within a few years, however, all three of those major artists would be dead of drug overdoses.

The Vietnam generation also became politically aware, and active. Now-Secretary-of-State John Kerry even returned home to toss his valor-earned medals on the Capitol steps and to testify before hearings into the Vietnam War. He had gone from warrior to “peace-nik.” Many other veterans followed suit, as portrayed in the Tom Hanks’ movie portrayal entitled, “Forrest Gump.” That film also touched on black activism, drug use and America’s self torment at its inextricable weaving of war, free speech and soul-searching. Other disturbing “ ’Nam” movies include Oliver Stone’s Platoon, and a plethora of others involving all-star casts and producers. They include: We Were Soldier;, Good Morning Vietnam; The Boys in Company C; Hamburger Hill; Uncommon Valor; Born on the Fourth of July; Deer Hunter; Full Metal Jacket; and Apocalypse Now.

Wars regarding wars in Iraq include the much-referenced Hurt Locker. They also include many stars and well-conceived realistic special effects in movies such as: Home of the Brave; Grace is Gone; The Tiger and the Snow; American Soldiers; Stop Loss; Green Zone; the Battle for Haditha; Redacted; and the Valley of Elah.

And, closer to my experiences, the conflict in Afghanistan was portrayed aptly in Hornet’s Nest (limited release); and quasi-realistically in Lone Survivor. I heard that ex-Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell speak earlier this year at the Ohio Theater. His therapy Golden Retriever wandering about among the many Afghan and Iraq-War vet crowd. I would have loved to buy him a beer, but only Ohio-State alumni vets were sponsoring him. I went to Hocking College, and now attend Franklin University online. Whatever.

There were good, and bad, movies about Afghanistan and Iraq, as detailed in a sort of top/bottom list of 19 such flicks on IMDB.com. It’s a safe bet that many of the stars assigned were put there by warriors, not just “POGs” who never left the wire.

See: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006118614/

Through it all continued a war-related population boom which contributed to increased demand for consumer goods. This also added to the accessibility of popular culture items such as transistor radios, teen magazines and action toys such as GI Joe and the girls’ domestic version, Barbie. Both of those action figures are still infused into our lives today. M-16s supposedly began as a Mattel toy, then morphed into a weapon, according to some unsubstantiated urban legend. Even such stories themselves become pop culture.

Increased prosperity contributed to a change in life style of most of the people. Ownership of houses increased and many people moved in from cities to suburban areas. The Ohio Historical Society has an excellent exhibit that includes a Columbus-built metal house. Other similar “pre-fab” homes were made of sheet metal similar to that used to build World War II bombers. With these, housing need and ownership of cars also increased. This in turn encouraged building of new highways, including the Autobahn-influenced interstates championed for Cold War defense by former Allied General turned president Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower. Road trips became a national vacation tradition.

People started to take more holidays, and to support this many new roadside motels and restaurants were set up. This included along Broad Street also part of U.S. 40, the National Road. Use of many new home-use appliances similarly became popular. This included TV, mixers, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and waste-disposal units.

But as the nation grew to accept the failure of Vietnam, and even their continued uneasiness with our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, bravery thieves thrived. An initial attempt to punish them criminally was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. Finally, in 2013, President Barack Obama signed the current Stolen Valor Act.

Public Law 113–12 (113^th Congress, H.R. 258) makes it a crime to claim a person received a military decoration with the intent of obtaining any “tangible benefit.” It was tightly written to overcome the 2005 objections of its predecessor law on free-speech grounds. Now employers, VA lenders and real vets have protection from not-so-valant warrior wanna-bes. That’s affected Vietnam and later vets because it ensures that the blood they spilled in earnest is not sullied. The law lives on for we Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) former warriors.

Conclusion:

We are a warrior-predicated and validated society. If America shares its 200 years of peak fame, like other empires in the past such as Rome, Greece or the British Empire, perhaps our time is fading. What cannot be turned back, however is the impact wars and the military has on popular and economic culture. Whether it’s kids using terms like “flak,” “fragged,” “the wire,” or “offed,” the impact is clear. People wear mock dog tags, or various kinds of camoflauge. They play Special Ops games, or shoot paintball and AirSoft guns. In an eery way, however, regard for human life has become a casualty.

We’ve become very gun-happy and possibly by necessity in the age of ISIS. Even shooters rush to buy AR-15 assault rifles, the non-semi-automatic versions of the M-16, and its Israeli-adapted little brother, the M-4. I carried an M-4, more adapted to house searches etc. due to its shorter profile.

Even Ohio police departments in Fairfield County, Lima Delaware and at Ohio State’s main campus have been given Mine Resistant and Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles such as we used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sadly, such vehicles were slow to come into use because of America’s loss of basic-steel manufacturing (another saga.)

As the military winds down from our two longest wars, local law enforcement also is given night-vision goggles, grenade launchers and old HUMVEE ambulances formerly destined instead for National Guard Units. See http://www.wsmv.com/story/26502822/militarization-of-local-law-enforcement

That story was most recently updated last night on the same link by Mike Bowersock.

To sum up, the military affects popular culture. And vets who have returned home struggle with hyper-situational awareness. They have trouble relating to those who have not “been in the shit.” As OEF/OIF vets transition, we, too, will learn to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Injury (no longer called a Disorder). For prior vets, it was called shell shock, battle rattle, or battle fatigue. Either way, you work to get around it, understand that you are but one of 411,000 veterans seeking help from a strained VA, and move on with life. Popular culture, meanwhile, will adopt what the military imbued in us, and repackage it for public consumption. Most of that is good, but you take the bad with it too.

References:

Exhibit: “1950s: Building the American Dream,” Ohio Historical Connection (formerly the Ohio Historical Society), 800 E. 17^th Avenue, Columbus, Ohio

Retrieved from: http://www.ohiohistory.org/exhibits/ohio-history-center-exhibits/1950s

And

http://www.lustronpreservation.org/

“How did Popular Culture Change in the Post-World War II Years?” eNote

Homework Help (Seven Responses)

Retrieved from:

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-did-us-popular-culture-change-post-ww2-ye-395354

“Militarization of Local Law Enforcement,” WCMH-TV, Channel 4, online stories

Sept. 10, 2014, referenced below. See also update Nov. 3, by Mike Bowersock, not yet posted.

Retrieved from: http://www.wsmv.com/story/26502822/militarization-of-local-law-enforcement