Posted on May 10, 2015
SFC Inprocessing
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I'm not one that needs nor wants recognition for my service. I actually prefer to keep my service private within my own circle of family and friends.

I have also served as a recruiter for the Army, so I can appreciate the advertising point of view. This being said, if a show of appreciation for service members is paid for by their own organization instead of its hosts, the NFL, which is a multi billion dollar industry, it lacks sincerity, does it not?

I do however support the DoD providing fly overs by the Air Force. In my opinion, this is a display of overall protection from our military while we enjoy events that our countrymen have enjoyed for generations.

Do you think that the NFL should pay for these bills during the events (minus fly overs), or is it necessary for the DoD to pay for them in order to display our military for any particular reason....?

http://www.sbnation.com/2015/5/8/8573341/national-guard-paying-nfl-teams-jets
Posted in these groups: B90eef30 NFLPatriotism logo PatriotismFootball FootballDod color DoD
Edited >1 y ago
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Responses: 16
Capt John Cable
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I personally find the thought of paying an NFL team, or any organization for that matter, to recognize, honor, or otherwise display our troops completely absurd. It is marketing wrapped in deception and it diminishes all those involved. The NFL team gets acolades for supporting the military (support that may or may not really exist) and the military essentially does advertising under false pretense. I'm not a marketing expert, so it may have an impact, but it's akin to subliminal advertising to me, based on deception, and should be prohibited by DOD. It disturbs me almost as much knowing that there are people somewhere in the chain of command that signed off on this nonsense as being an appropriate practice.
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I'm sorry I can only give this an up vote once. I want to give it a billion.
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GySgt Wayne A. Ekblad
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ABSOLUTELY NOT! I find this to be an total waste of scarce tax dollars. Moreover, this flies in the face of all the nonsense we hear about DOD not having enough money to do this, that, or the next thing.
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Capt Brandon Charters
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This report took me by surprise. It really cheapens the ceremonies we always see in pregame or halftime. If the DoD is paying the NFL, I'm sure MLB and the NBA are close behind. How far away are we from some of the infamous historical regimes that forcefully injected national pride into sporting events to stir nationalism?

To look at it from a different angle, as a volunteer force, marketing for recruitment has always been an objective for the DoD. I see this, in some ways, as a unique extension of this marketing. I still am quite worried about how we (as a country) will raise our next generation to have pride in the military without massive marketing dollars or asking popular sporting organizations to endorse us.
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