Satire Is Good But SNL Has Built A Bridge Too Far

Last Saturday while SNL was mocking a disabled veteran, I was at Pritzker Military Library Gala in Chicago.  If you haven’t seen the clip, here it is.  I was thinking of not sharing it. But, it’s been shared all over the internet so you might have seen it.

The veteran is a political candidate. He was a Navy SEAL. If you care to learn more about the SEAL’s, you can at this link right here courtesy of the PMML. When this exhibit was at the library, I took a SEAL through it that had done three tours in Afghanistan. You ought to talk to some folks that have been there  sometime if you get the chance.

At the gala this year, they gave the lifetime achievement award to Dennis Showalter.   He is a professor emeritus at Colorado College. During his talk when he accepted the award, he made the case that the Founder’s of our country knew that the military would be a part of the fabric of American life.  He illustrated that by reading the Preamble to the Constitution.  It’s pretty clear you cannot have a free and open society without a military that can defend and protect that society.

SNL used to be funny.  I haven’t watched it in years.  It’s small now.  All the weekly late night shows are small too.  Johnny Carson was never small.  His shadow loomed large.  Of course, it was a different time but Carson had a very different approach and way of using satire to get laughs.  The people now aren’t funny. They are just mean. Bitter.  Small.

When you see how some of them are in real life, well, they look smaller.

A lot of people have the impression that people who served in the military are somehow damaged goods. Their opinion is they weren’t up to snuff, so they joined the military.  That is so untrue.

There are some people I know that don’t need to be in the military.  They come from very wealthy families.  Yet, they signed up.  This was post 2001.  They interrupted their lives to serve overseas.  I respect that a lot.  Most people their age and in their position would not even entertain it.  They could hang out at the club or in some elite graduate school that their parents would donate to in order to ensure their admission.  The military?  That’s for the other people.

I remember back in 2008 when a lot of people told me that Obama was so smart and McCain was so dumb.  Their evidence on McCain was his class rank at Navy.  I asked, “Do you know how they rank the class at Navy?”

An aside,  when you get captured and wind up in a POW camp you aren’t a loser either

Everyone assumes it is by tests in classes.  It’s not.  McCain did not have the typical college experience.  Up at 6am in in formation by 6:30am.  March to breakfast.  March to lunch.  Class all day, sports and military training after class.  Dinner.  Study until 11pm when it’s lights out and the bugler plays Taps.

At the service academies, class rank is based on not only what you do in the classroom, but how you perform militarily in your military exercises.  It’s also about physical fitness.  If you perform well or poorly in your mandatory physical fitness classes, it helps or dings your rank.  Every single cadet has to play an intramural or an intercollegiate sport.  The life is super demanding and few people really understand it.  It’s not wake and bake and take 14 semester hours of classes hoping to graduate on time.  One of my greatest regrets is dropping out of the academy.  That’s one decision where I might give anything to go back.

It turns out, people that have had military experience often become pretty great entrepreneurs.  The entire country of Israel is a datapoint for that.  But, there are plenty in the United States from over the years.  I have met many.  Places like West Point, Navy, Air Force, and VMI are starting to institute entrepreneurship programs for cadets because the linkages between what you learn by leading a platoon is similar to what you need to know to lead a startup.  We need to start telling their stories so we change the narrative in this country.  We have let the Hollywood elite dominate the narrative for too long and for the most part, it’s not true.