GY6: misconceptions about veterans

Chief Tango sends us a link to Army Times which reports on a poll commissioned by those people at “Got Your 6” in regards to the perception that Americans have of veterans. It’s not surprising really that 46% of the people polled thought that a hobo is most likely a veteran, that only ten percent of the polled thought that a successful businessman might be a veteran.

“The perception of veterans is just not aligned with reality,” said Chris Marvin, managing director of Got Your Six. “A lot of the time, people just have a completely wrong image in their minds.”

[…]

The good news, he said, is that those opinions seem based more on unfamiliarity with veterans than on deep-seated beliefs about them.

“We’re not talking about religion or politics here,” Marvin said. “We know we can change people’s minds on this.”

Marvin and campaign officials have been sharing portions of the results with Hollywood writers and producers, encouraging them to bring more nuanced portrayals of veterans into their scripts.

Yeah, well, Hollywood is the reason that Americans have that perception. Movies like “Deer Hunter”, “Coming Home”, “Apocalypse Now” all portray veterans as borderline psychopaths who are one loud noise away from exploding all over society.

The media is another reason. You only read about veterans who commit horrific crimes – like Jared Loughner, the Tuscon shooter who once stopped into an Army recruiter office and caught the PTSD while he was there. Then there was the highly-trained veteran in the Pacific Northwest who drowned in a mud puddle while on the run from police. That fellow who gunned down some Sikhs in California who spent a few months in the Army two decades ago. And the crazed World War two veteran who finally cracked 70 years after his service and shot up the Holocaust Museum. A veteran pulls several people out of a burning home, or drags an injured driver from his his vehicle which is engulfed in flames barely get a mention in the local news.

Make lying about your military service a crime and start locking the liars up then the homeless veteran population would drop by half. The folks who make their grievance money from holding up phony vets as homeless wouldn’t go along with that.

You know, “Got Your 6” should go back to Hollywood and convince them to portray veterans in a better light, but it won’t work. Hollywood doesn’t want to do movies about well-adjusted folks who play by the rules. There are a million success stories out there, but there’s no box office draw because the culture is corrupted – it was corrupted by Hollywood who makes their money criticizing this country. Successful veterans who go to work every day and save the world from itself aren’t newsworthy enough.

And, oh, yeah, I’ve sent people who could use “Got Your 6” help to them, and we got the sound of crickets chirping as an answer. Got Your 6 is nothing but something that Hollywood people can throw their money at and feel better about themselves – while stabbing vets in the back.

Category: Veterans Issues