Pro-military displays during NFL football games are virtually ubiquitous these days and nowhere is that more apparent that at a New York Jets home-game, where the team singles out soldiers on the big screen and admonishes the crowd to cheer them.
The “Hometown Hero” segment might seem like just lazy pandering to jingoism among hometown fans, but it’s not. The Jets, like many NFL teams, are actually getting paid by the Pentagon to do it.
Between direct Pentagon funding and the National Guard, 14 NFL teams have received $5.4 million over the past 4 seasons to pay them to hold these pro-military segments.
The National Guard is defending the cost as a “recruiting” expense, though much like the similar NASCAR bankrolling, there is little sign that they have yielded results.
For recruiting, and to create an association between rooting for a team to defeat others and rooting for the US "team" to defeat others, killing little girls with its cluster bombs in the process.
Wars R US
You mean the American public conscience is being…worked? By our government? Oh my…
I hate the military idiocy in the USA.Leni Riefenstal and Goebbels would be envious of our ability to be hypocrites wo media illumination.Zion smiles at our helplessness.
as the pentagon earns no money, it's "funding" comes directly from the u.s. taxpayer. awesome.
Why does the Nationals baseball team have this mindless flag waving thing in the third inning? What baseball tradition is there to justify it? Are major league baseball teams being paid for this? I'm sick of US wars, and of needless deaths, and wasting taxpayers' money.