Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

This thought occurred to me yesterday as the subject of Saturday’s Army-Navy Game appeared at a meeting I attended:

I am not sure US Service Academy Graduates grasp this, being so close in to their service structures, histories, and careers therein, but: Americans hold their warriors in deepest reverence and swell with pride to see them — Americans’ own, paid for by Americans — practicing warrior-hood on the fields of friendly strife.

There is really no other reason for a national network to pay any attention to this game, which means nothing in the great gambling fracas and pageant that is college and professional sports.  The networks cover this otherwise insignificant game because Americans want to see their guys, the ones they fundamentally want and own, apart from selfish reasons such as gambling and drinking, and for elevated reasons of patriotism and self-sacrifice, being who they are, fighters and patriots. Those are American parents’ children.  Americans know that.

College players have no such connection to Americans, everyone knows they are bought and paid for by gamblers and worse.  And dead-end thugs into the bargain.  Academy kids are different, Americans feel very close to them and they know they all pay for them.  Academy kids are very personal to Americans.  And Americans love a worthy fighter and want a worthy winner, as well they should.

Being on the inside of this phenomenon and its resulting organizations, it seems to me Graduates tend not to grasp this deep connection Americans feel to their Academy kids.  Not that they should, or should be expected to, I don’t think it really matters.  Graduates are inside a system non-Graduates can never enter, nor should they.  But those kids and the system they work within really matter to American parents and other Americans.

And I think that is why this game, which is insignificant relative to the vast gambling operation that is college and professional sports and sports media, is covered by the networks.  A curious, felicitous, and well-deserved phenomenon.

Update 1: Paul A. Rahe: Political theater and coordinated disinformation are the order of the day.

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA