Since we were exploring visual arguments in regards to war, i wanted to look at some commercials for the U.S. Army and Navy. I tried embedding a couple that i found on youtube, so hopefully they work. If not, here are the links http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDXK1dFY_Pc, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MorDCtBPR8&feature=related.

In watching these videos, i was struck by how completely they ignore certain aspects of going into the army. Though i had seen them on tv before, this time i was comparing them to the images and videos that we watched in class last week. I thought immediately of the set of pictures that we investigated, with the picture of Dresden after the bombing, then on the children in Vietnam, then the dead U.S. soldier, and finally the U.S. soldier with the child. If you look at each of these pictures as a different side of war, one being massive destruction, the second being the trauma and horror that is dealt to innocent people, then the third being death, and the last one, the only positive one, being the army helping people and making people happy again. I feel that these commercials barely even cover one of these sides of the army. For a brief second in the army commercial you see them helping civilians out, but apart from that, both commercials are focused solely on self-improvement. The navy commercial talks about why getting an education with the navy would be great (the ship, of course), and the army talks about the "strength" of being a U.S. soldier. Neither of them even suggest fighting, or the possibility of death, or the destruction towards innocent people. While it's logical that this would be the case of a recruitment tool, it makes me wonder whether it fundamentally changes the way we all see the army. If all we ever see are glorified self-improvement videos, what is the mindset of people who actually sign up. Maybe the idea of death is pushed aside, and we only expect success. I think that instead of advertising how the Army and the Navy can improve our own lives, it should advertise the importance to help others around the world, and to protect citizens, at least then people might enlist more for the goal of service than to help themselves out.