In the sacred halls of the Pentagon, there’s never a bad time to drop a #KnowYourMil knowledge bomb on the unsuspecting populace, especially if that populace is distracted by a massive and terrifying pandemic.
To wit, the Defense Department opted to inform America on Thursday that, I shit you not, ‘DOD Paved Way for Internet, Now So Crucial in Helping to Fight COVID-19‘
That’s right: for those of you who are completely ignorant of military history, the Defense Department was involved in the creation of ARPANET, a precursor to today’s Internet, in the late 1960s. Why the DoD feels compelled to choose now, of all times, to remind us of this is totally beyond me, but let’s read on:
The internet went live in 1969, thanks, in part, to the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency and DARPA’s partnership with scientists, industry and academia.
Today, DOD is using the internet in novel ways as a tool to enhance traditional health care practices and to help in battling the coronavirus.
For example, telework, email, video teleconferencing, telehealth, telemedicine, distance learning, virtual counseling, virtual funerals and sharing COVID-19 medical research data across the globe are just a few of the internet applications being used by civilians and the military to share information and mitigate the impact of this deadly virus.
Look, the Defense Department is doing plenty to fight the spread of COVID-19 across the United States, from calling up former medical personnel to deploying service members to hard-hit areas across the country.
But this article, however, is a weird ass flex, isn’t it? It’s like saying, ‘gee whiz, let’s all give three cheers for the rotting corpse of Henry Ford for making possible all the nifty ambulances we’re using to cart around COVID-19 victims.’
Some of you agree:
https://twitter.com/PaulSzoldra/status/1250880170807853056https://twitter.com/AaronMehta/status/1250875108127842304https://twitter.com/DanLamothe/status/1250873418318315530https://twitter.com/HopeSeck/status/1250873101182799874
I get it: the U.S. military is continually on a mission to spotlight its capabilities beyond simply bombing the living bejesus out of terrorists everywhere, and disaster response is a perfect PR opportunity for the Pentagon’s public affairs shop. If I were a flack, I would probably do the exact same thing.
But this … this is just beating a dead horse, and not in a fun, lighthearted way. Just because the Internet has made possible the weird world of solitude we all occupy now doesn’t mean we owe you a tip of the hat and a pat on the back for it, and it seems super weird to make this point while people are more concerned with the rising death toll.
Still, there is one saving grace in this DoD produced article: it finally has nothing to do with lethality for once in my godforsaken life.