Follies of the Madmen #293

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Actually, it's a T-38 trainer. And for the record, since you lefties seem unable to comprehend this without detailed and pedantic explanation, a "weapon of mass destruction" is something that kills indiscriminately on a scale measured in megadeaths: a nuclear warhead or weaponized biological organism. Stop using it to describe everything from a pocket knife to a meteor strike.

Points well made and well taken, A Nonny Mouse. Nonetheless, extremely cynical and/or tone-deaf to use hymn references for recruiting, esp. in EBONY magazine, given Black church practices and history.

I never thought they would swing so low (sorry, Stoop, stoop so low) to grab your attention. What a mad ad world eh?

When I was in the USAF, I heard African-Americans singing it. (Okay, it was at a squadron's talent night, but still . . .)

For recruitment, it may be be a bit more appropriate than many might realize. A chariot (airplane) could take them from misery (inner-city poverty/drugs/crime) to comfort (a clean life and job skills). There were few opportunities for African-American youths. The military was a guaranteed way to escape the ghetto, just as the Underground Railroad had been a way to escape the plantation. The parallels are there.

To me, the song's use by English Rugby blighters is far worse.

This reminds me of the controversy when the Navy wanted to name a new nuclear-powered fast attack submarine the USS Corpus Christi (Latin for "Body of Christ"). Religious groups protested, and the Navy changed the name to USS City of Corpus Christi. The only thing interesting I found out about this ship was that it was "annihilated" by an Indian submarine in naval exercise MALABAR, a simulated battle involving the navies of India, Japan, and the U.S. (Sidenote: The ship was decommissioned earlier this year, and is in Reserve status in Bremerton, Washington, while undergoing the process of inactivation.)