MLB: Are Veteran Tributes Too Much?

A veteran says enough is enough when it comes to tributes for the soldiers
NBC Sports
Hardball Talk
Craig Calcaterra
Oct 28, 2014

KANSAS CITY — We’ve touched on the idea of conspicuous patriotism and tributes to the soldiers before — ESPN’s Howard Bryant wrote an excellent article about it last year — but today we have a thought-provoking piece from a veteran, Rory Fanning, talking about tribute concerts and the public thanking of the troops at sporting events:

"We use the term hero in part because it makes us feel good and in part because it shuts soldiers up (which, believe me, makes the rest of us feel better). Labeled as a hero, it’s also hard to think twice about putting your weapons down. Thank yous to heroes discourage dissent, which is one reason military bureaucrats feed off the term . . . Then you have Bruce Springsteen and Metallica telling them “thank you” for wearing that uniform, that they are heroes, that whatever it is they’re doing in distant lands while we go about our lives here isn’t an issue. There is even the possibility that, one day, you, the veteran, might be ushered onto that stage during a concert or onto the field during a ballgame for a very public thank you. The conflicted soldier thinks twice."

Fanning makes the argument that by doing things like these, we necessarily give our approval to the country’s military policies of the past 13 years and stifle dissent. I think there is a lot of truth to that. But more broadly, I think the obligatory manner in which we have imported patriotism and honoring of the military into baseball has caused us to lose sight of the fact that — even if doing these things are good and admirable — when we make our patriotism mindless, we lose an essential part of it, which is thoughtfulness. And, yes, to Fanning’s point, when we make our acts of patriotism obligatory we take away another essential thing: the freedom of dissent.

I think we’ve reached that point in baseball. Major League Baseball’s charitable efforts, specifically for the Welcome Back Veterans and Wounded Warrior charities are admirable. And there is no question in my mind that they are well-intentioned. But, at times, one does feel the sense of formality and a sense of the obligatory with respect to all of this. And no small amount of corporate sponsorship is involved, in effect, allowing corporations to ride on the back of patriotic sentiment in an effort, intentionally or unintentionally, to bolster their own image.
read more here

Are there ever too many things being done for them? My vote is HELL NO!