Bah to the bah

Tommy’s a bit off base here. Had he joined his friends at the theater, he would have know that the 3 Doors Down “Citizen Soldier” pre-trailer commercial has been abandoned by the National Guard. I imagine that a few months into the campaign some polling determined it to be ineffective and the whole thing was jettisoned.

Their findings…

1. The word “soldier” does not portray a strong enough image
2. 3 Doors Down is too alternative.
3. Where the fuck is NASCAR?

It was back the drawing board. So if Tom had made the trip to the multiplex to see Zack Snyder direct the exact same sex scene from 300 except it takes place in a flying owl skull he’d get a completely different National Guard pitch. “Soldier” has been replaced with more aggressive “Warrior.” 3 Doors Down and their complicated metaphors have been canned for the decidedly straightforward trashcan simplicity of Kid Rock. And since the NG is already paying to put their logo on Dale Jr’s car they might as well throw some CGI NASCAR in there too. Who cares if it has nothing to do with whatever story they’re trying to tell. It’s NASCAR, hon.

But I don’t want to sound critical of the new promotion. America needed a new promotion. The old one was so incredibly flawed that any self-respected theatre owner should have refused to play it. It attempted to link today’s National Guard with some of our military’s more successful and non-controversial campaigns. Hey high school kids? You know that kick-ass scene at the beginning Saving Private Ryan you watched on TNT this weekend? Dudes were all National Guard. And remember when a ragtag group of Americans beat the Confederate Red Coats during Revolutionary War in the mountains of California by running through the woods dodging mines and exploding cannon fire? Yeah baby, all National Guard.

Creative licenses are taken with 90% of the posts on this blog. But it’s always irked me that these stupid commercials show Revolutionary War soldiers dodging exploding cannonballs. Cannonballs don’t explode when they hit the ground. In fact, cannonballs don’t explode when they hit anything. They are solid metal balls. Shells, on the other hand, are hollow metal casing filled with an explosive powder that detonate when their fuses expire. But they weren’t used against the US until the War of 1812 and the still don’t explode on impact. And they weren’t fired form cannons.

So as convoluted as the new National Guard commercial is, at least it no longer contains wild historical inaccuracies. And this will no doubt be the only time the American education system will benefit from more Kid Rock.