The Militaries and Santa Clause
??Santa Clause will be able to give out his gifts as he had planed and the airplanes are prepared incase he needs help distributing them.?
This week, the commander of a foreign Spanish military mission offered in those words his support for Santa Clause to deliver gifts to his men. This was broadcasted in a videoconference conversation with President Zapatero.
 Fernando Berlín the author of this blog, is the director of Radiocable.com and participates in various media in Spain.
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I wonder what Santa Clause??s face would look like to such an offer. I suppose, like me, he would wonder, what part have they failed to understand?
Last week, in a Spanish TV, one could also see a soldier raffling the questions of a classroom full of children. It does not seem like the most efficient extracurricular activity, however that??s how it was done.
A child asked, are you carrying a gun? And the soldier, proudly said: no, not right now. He could have said ??no, the times for guns are always terrifying?, but he didn??t because he is not a philosopher, he is a soldier.
The informative finished there, because I guess that more than a child asked, have you killed someone? Which would be a question asked by many, at any age, and in any place?
There was a time in which society idealized warriors, just like today we idealize soccer players. Luckily social progress and the consciousness about the meaning of life, has pushed war and death -at least in Europe- to the place it corresponds, which is one of shame, outside of public projection. And it has been a difficult path but it has been conquered -and not by much- at side from movies, oil, gas, diamonds, the Coltan?of all of those who say war is about liberty, when in reality they are speaking about something else. And in effect, I am one of those who does not see soldiers, precisely, as a tool for peace.
I recognize I liked that place in war, -the place of shame-, and I recognize that their presence next to the children had me nervous. We must keep them far away just like adults are separated from other subjects. Are they spoken about the Tooth Fairy, of the Three Kings?
Lets recognize it, to take a soldier to a classroom is less efficient then taking Lucia Lapiedra – a porn star- to speak there. She could also offer Santa Clause to deliver presents, can you imagine? I can come up with a few reasons why this could be happily received by the majority of the parents. But no, I also can not imagine her in a classroom full of children asking: do you have on you any working tools? She could answer, ??my tool is love,? but I doubt she would say that because we are not under a philosophy. However, her job has a much different meaning than that of war.
