Military in Media

Military in the media is such a weird thing for me personally. I never realized it was as prevalent as it is until it was pointed out to me in this class. Once I heard everything we talked about, militainment and everything, I was completely in awe. There really are these things everywhere I look, I've just never paid attention to them until now. I guess the point of this class is to educate us more on these things and make us more aware of what the media is trying to do in our lives, but this certain topic really struck me more than a lot of the others, which is very peculiar for me as a person. I have not one bit of interest in political and military issues, which I admit to myself is an annoying quality, because I do want to care about these important issues, I just don't. But the conversation in class about military in the media, and the readings we did over it, really sparked my interest more than I thought possible.
I knew that my grandpa was in the marines once upon a time, but he is still alive and well so I never thought that was of any importance to my view of him. He never once talked to me about his time in the service, during World War II, and I never cared enough to ask. Little did I know it was because it was such an emotionally hard time for him, that he just chose not to relive those awful memories, and everyone just knew not to ask about them. Because of his reaction to the time he served our country, I believed that the military was corrupt and everything we see about it is a lie.
This theory was proved mostly right to me in the discussion in class. I'm not sure if that was the intention, but I hate how the media glorifies "our heroes" as loving what they do and being respected for it. I believe these women and men deserve so much gratitude for putting their lives on the line and living through these tragic experiences, but I hate that they go into it thinking things are so much different than they actually are. This is because of the media. It is portrayed in video games that combat is almost fun and simple. You can kill any guy you want and if he gets you first, well don't worry you can just restart the game. There is no restart button when it comes to the real deal. This is made so much more real to people when they finally experience a loved on dying. Even that is made to seem honorable though. You see videos of army wives sobbing over their husbands dead bodies, and this is when it should hit home to people that this isn't something to be taken lightly, but people just say poor thing and move on. People don't think that would happen to their loved one, but it easily can.
I'm just so disappointed that media and game companies have become so good at targeting the exact right age in their games and such to manipulate them into thinking this is what is best for them. The real stuff isn't shown to them until they are already signed up and arrived at boot camp. It makes me so sad to see these people regretting this decision and wishing they hadn't listened to what everyone was feeding them. My sister just left for boot camp and it makes me sick to think about her getting hurt or coming back disappointed in what she thought was an amazing adventure. I truly hope that one day people realize what they are really signing up for and take that into consideration before making one of the biggest decisions of their lives.