Their Finest Recorded Hour

by shep

First off, congratulations to the now released British sailors and the British government for not starting World War The End of Civilization As We Know It.

Obviously, had it been up to some of your seasoned veterans and commentators, not to mention some of your neocon friends across the pond, we might all be beating, stabbing and shooting each other to get one last fill-up for the trip to Armageddon.

Something occurred to me as I was watching some video of the Brits as they were being held, reading statements, having tea, etc., that probably wouldn't occur to the Grizzled Generation or even our baby-boomer, neocon, tele-warriors. (First off, the Brits and Iranians were not at war, but that’s not what I’m talking about.)

In Great War II, Korea, and even Vietnam, if a captive were confronted with a camera, that would seem like a fairly dramatic development. We were still using something called fillum back then, and fillum cameras were bulky and not all that commonplace. Being questioned while someone pointed a camera at you would at least make one a bit suspicious (especially if you were at war with them).

Today’s military-age kids (I think being twice their age gives me some license here) were raised on camera phones, palm-sized high-resolution video cameras, web cams, and the inter (and You) tubes. Being “on-camera” for these kids is like wearing pants.

Finally, the world has shrunk considerably since The Good Ole Days and today’s twenty something’s, especially Europeans, are considerably less xenophobic than many of their forebears. Even as captives, suffering some hostility and mistreatment from the Iranians, they might be less likely to be suspicious, unforgiving or hate-filled toward their captors (did I mention that they were not at war?). Thank God.

So, go fill-‘er-up and have a Happy Easter (and don’t forget the videocam).