Cartoon Mice On A Plane

Let’s engage in some Vergangenheitsbewältigung!

I’m not sure what that means, but I think it describes what Danzig/Gdan’sk-born Nobel Prize–winning German writer and artist Günter Grass, best known for novels evoking Germany’s Nazi years, was about when he announced to the world that he’d been in the military branch of the SS during late WWII.

I too know what it means to overcome the past. I grew up in a military state within the United States: I was an Army brat. As a child in the Fabulous ’50s, I regularly lived on army bases, surrounded by machines of war, and talk of war, and by soldiers, and I loved it.

That’s right! I admit it! I loved it! I loved waking up before dawn to the sound of machine gun fire from a practice range. I loved watching troops forcibly marched past me singing their songs of loose women, Lieutenants’ tails, and birdies in the sky doing that in their eye. I loved having real Army junk to help play war, like real helmets, and mess kits, and ammunition belts. The roads were paved with spent shells.

My favorite thing was when, each May, on a Saturday, the army would roll everything out of storage and put on a kick-ass Armed Forces Day show, with mock helicopter and tank assaults, mock bombing runs, and mock commando attacks on mock enemies, mock enemy cities, and mock commando attack recipients, respectively. There were tanks, cannon, and aircraft to play in. We kids got to use real radar and practice aiming real anti-aircraft guns.

There were also army tent after army tent of exhibitions of cool army paraphernalia, like small arms and mortars and bazookas, cool gross stuff like surgical equipment for fixing soldiers up and sending them back to get shot again, and even information on how to survive a nearby tactical nuclear attack. (Step 1: When you see a massive fireball, you will know that the tactical nuclear weapon did not kill you instantly. Congratulations! You have completed Step 1!)

Needless to say, I avoided the Army later in life. It’s one thing to play soldier and pretend-die in your backyard. It’s another, I thought, to die submerged face-down in a rice paddy. Have you ever smelled a rice paddy, while face-down in one? OK, try this: Have you ever smelled a water buffalo? Now, have you ever smelled what comes out of a water buffalo? That’s what a rice paddy smells like from a distance.

Still, even as an adult, I confess loving war shows. One of my fondest memories as an adult, while dressed, was witnessing a Swiss Armed Forces Day event in 1979 in Zürich that included a mock tank and aerial assault on the café and surroundings in which Thomas Mann and James Joyce used to hang together. Take that one for Tonio Kröger, this one for Ulysses! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

And how I also have loved to see how the Seafair Torchlight Parade has been almost half taken over by military troops. What a thrill.

But, seriously, I’m not only overreacting to Günter Grass’ belated revelation. I’m also overreacting to the news, last week, that a theme park company that used to try to compete with Disney World in Orlando, Fla., now wants to build an “Army World” near Fort Belvoir, Va. The proposal talks about how visitors would be able to “command the latest M-1 tank, feel the rush of a paratrooper freefall, fly a Cobra Gunship, or defend your B-17 as a waist gunner.” In other words, Armed Forces Day, every day of the year, for the price of admission.

I don’t know how America can do better than that! It combines everything that is great about our military/industrial empire. We should have military theme parks in every state to celebrate our superior military might, which the whole world must tremble before.

If only Disney itself could do them! Imagine being able to throw Mickey out of a plane!