To this:
The NFL has co-opted the military, or the other way around. I’m not sure whether the Pentagon owns the NFL or the NFL owns the Pentagon, but the Pentagon sure is happy to spend $36k to do a useless, costly flyover to get rah rah from the stadiums while one Super Bowl flyover cost $450,000.
If you’ll pardon my military rant, as I am both a veteran AND a pilot, that money, while being touted as a way to recruit pilots, might have been far better spent on identifying and recruiting high potential kids of color rather than to solicit the white kids who already have the funds to pay for training or the mandate to attend the Air Force Academy.
You want recruits? Invest in the goddamned schools. You want pilots? Invest in the schools and that STEM training that will help them succeed as pilots.
You want good military people? Change the culture that affects the health, the crime rate and mental stability that keeps kids out. While that may be across the board, it particularly hits Black kids.
Both my drill sergeant and my assistant drill back in Fort Jackson South Carolina in 1973 were Black.The military has long been a place where Blacks have been able to get training, college, three squares and a leg up. To a point. These days that’s harder than ever.