May 19th is Armed Services Day (also called Armed Forces Day but I'll mention both since it's not clear who is winning that pr battle). Growing up in a big Canadian city my relationship to the military was simple. I didn't know anyone who was in the military. And the story is that my grandfather enlisted prior to the Second World War but never made it out of basic training because he had flat feet. The regiment that he was scheduled to be with did go to Europe and none of the service members in that regiment made it home alive. If not for his flat feet, none of us would have been born.
If you don't know anyone who has served in the military, and especially if you don't know anyone who has been deployed to a war zone, it's easy to think about service in black and white terms. I've met many who believe that the best way to support the troops is to question nothing and offer nationalistic platitudes till the cows come home. And I've met people who aren't able to see service members as humans deserving of the same rights and justice as the rest of us. There aren't a lot of folks in the middle.
Which is too bad since I bet a lot of service members would put themselves there. And I wonder, based on my very limited experience, how well equipped those of us who haven't served in the military are to offer the kind of support service members actually need. I worry that we aren't very well equipped at all. That we are failing.
Which brings me to an Armed Services Day promotion I came across. Some online pharmacy that specializes in "lifestyle drugs" (read: drugs for sexual functioning like Viagra, Cialis, Levitra) is recognizing the "service and sacrifice" of service members past and present by offering them $15 off their order of sex drugs on May 19th.
The truth is that service members are often un- and underemployed, and $15 off is $15 off, so it's hard to say "this is terrible and shouldn't happen". But it feels right to say "this is terrible". Service members get so little support with post-combat sexual health issues and the rates of sexual assault and suicide are so high, that I think it's fair to say this kind of shameless drug marketing simply doesn't have a place in any thoughtful consideration of what we might want to be thinking about on May 19th. And even though some might benefit from the discount, I have a hard time thinking of it as support in any meaningful way.