I’m a sports fan. And last weekend I caught the epic clash between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs, once again won by the Chiefs and the magical Patrick Mahomes. Yet seemingly no big NFL game is complete without a military flyover, in this instance by a B-2 nuclear stealth bomber. There’s nothing like mixing potential nuclear Armageddon with football — it’s uniquely American.
It put me to mind of this article that I wrote in 2018 for TomDispatch. We just can’t seem to be able to play ball nowadays without the event turning into a celebration of the U.S. military and its most deadly weaponry. There’s a place for everything, and the place for combat jets, military camouflage and the like is not at sporting events. Sports is supposed to bring us together in a thrilling celebration of competition that isn’t deadly. When the game ends, after all, opponents shake hands, even hug; they walk away together, knowing there’ll always be another game. Another chance at victory. Life, even in defeat, goes on.
War, to state the obvious, isn’t like that — at all. Make sports not war, America.
Hellbound and Down 