US patriot act ensures one hell of a show

AMERICA could never stand accused of doing things by half.

And whoever came up with the idea to stage a college basketball game on an aircraft carrier as the sun set over San Diego last Friday night could never stand accused of cutting corners on patriotic fervour.

Maybe I’ve been numbed by the relentless mawkishness of this nation’s preoccupation with its own military but hardwood on a billion dollar ship felt oddly appropriate, residing as it did at the respectable end of the Veterans’ Day commemorations, the US version of Remembrance Day.

Veterans’ Day is a big deal here, an annual opportunity (on top of all the other opportunities) to right the wrongs of wars past when the ordinary serviceman or woman was poorly received at home, bearing the brunt of conflicts that registered too little or far too much.

At sports events up and down the country, military personnel spent the weekend being hugged and backslapped, standing awkwardly for cameras and applause. From the ceremonial opening of the college basketball season through Saturday’s college football programme and on into the NFL on Sunday, the soldier enjoyed VIP status, benefiting from the various teams’ apparently limitless commitment to out-honour each other.

The USS Carl Vinson was reportedly the aircraft carrier off which the lifeless carcass of Osama bin Laden was tossed back in May. So where better to host a basketball game between the nation’s top team, the University of North Carolina, and another powerhouse of hoops, Michigan State University?

Along with the 7,000 fans, military personnel and veterans, President Obama, a genuine fan of the game, also sat courtside. It was a lopsided North Carolina victory but the full moon and calm conditions ensured that whatever transpired on the makeshift court was secondary to the uniqueness of the setting.

On Saturday afternoon, I found myself in Yankee Stadium for, of all things, a football game. Conveniently enough, it pitted Army against Newark-based Rutgers University, two of the more ancient institutions in college football.

Tucked neatly into the baseball expanse normally occupied by the Bronx Bombers, the temporary football field stretched from home plate to centre field. Hundreds of grey-uniformed army cadets, obligated to attend games involving the military academy, stood in the bleachers either side of the promo-wielding plasma scoreboard.

It was a jarring clash of old world tradition and the bawdy commercialism of corporate America. In their wide-topped visor caps, they ironically bore an uncanny resemblance to the rows of military you’d picture attending CSKA Moscow matches in some ungodly bowl of concrete in Russia. Nicknamed ‘The Long Gray Line’, the graduates of the West Point Academy probably have more in common with their eastern counterparts than they’d care to admit.

Normally, Army play at the beautifully appointed Michie Stadium. It sits, almost improbably, right on top of the Hudson River, upstream from New York city.

They’ve been playing there since the 1920s but for a long while during their heyday just before, during and a couple of years after the Second World War, they also played occasionally at Yankee Stadium, drawing massive crowds for classic tussles with Notre Dame, Navy and the other giants.

But it’s all different now. The pro game, which grew in the decades following the war, has diminished the appeal. College football is a means to an end which is knee-deep in dollar signs. A cadet is a soldier in the making, his obligation after graduation is active service. Football is a past-time in the old school sense. But judging by one video montage beamed out from the massive screen during a break in play, much of the pageantry of the past has stayed the same, the Fourth Regiment marching out before kick-off just as they have done for decades, the cannon fired after every restart.

The game itself was mediocre, Rutgers eventually pulling away for victory at the end, but none of that mattered to those in attendance and even for us four neutrals (two more Irish and a Belgian) in the upper tier, it was all an experience, to say the least.

At one stage, veterans among the crowd from the different branches of the military were called upon to stand up and let themselves be known. The navy, the air force, the marines and then, last of all, the army, who of course received the biggest cheer.

We didn’t know what to do. It was hard not to feel awkward or a little conflicted. They hadn’t fought for us. But we did applaud. That’s the least we could do.

* [e-mail] Twitter: JohnWRiordan