Go, Joe!

Independence Day, the 4th of July, is nearly upon us, and has me thinking about our military forces, and things inspirational.

Remember the GI Joe comic books, cartoons and action figures from the 1980s and 1990s? Heroic American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guards battling the completely evil, amazingly well equipped and well supplied, yet totally inept forces of COBRA, expending millions of rounds of ammunition with never a casualty on either side. Ridiculous, perhaps, when viewed in retrospect, but exciting, and even inspiring for the young viewing audience it was aimed at.

I’m old enough to remember when what we referred to as GI Joe (not an official name, just what we kids called it) was a plastic figure about six inches tall (think of the bags of plastic soldiers, each about two inches tall, in various poses, usually a dark green color – these “GI Joes” were just larger versions of those small “army men”). By the time the original GI Joe “action figures”, articulated dolls about 11 and 1/2 inches tall, dressed in a reasonable imitation of real military uniforms and equipped with a helmet and rifle started to get popular, I was already past the age when playing with toy soldiers (or “dolls” as we oh-so-mature teenagers said) was of any interest. But only a few short years before that, I had owned a whole army of both the smaller and larger pre-posed plastic soldiers, along with about a squad each of World War II Japanese and German soldiers, the Japanese in a tan-colored plastic and the Germans in grey, to approximate the uniforms they had worn. I planned and executed thousands of epic battles, in which the enemy might fight bravely, but the Americans always won (through superior valor, of course, rather than superior numbers). The inspiring ideas behind the 3 and 3/4 inch tall GI Joe of today, his nearly foot-tall predecessor, and their immobile green plastic forerunners are all the same ones: the valiant and heroic American fighting man and woman.

As I hope most parents do (but fear that most of them actually don’t), I sat down and watched the programs that my children were watching while they were growing up – not all of them, but enough to know what kind of propaganda they were getting from one of the mainline sources, television. I was impressed with several of the cartoon shows that came out during the 80s and 90s, and GI Joe was among those. It was simplistic, nobody (not even the bad guys) got killed or even seriously hurt, and the good guys always won, but there were a lot of valuable moral lessons included as part of the story lines, appropriately tailored to the target age group.

Remember Sgt. Slaughter? The GI Joe character who started life as a real life WWF pro wrestler never left anyone behind. “Everybody goes home or nobody goes home” was his tagline. The other Joes, (Duke, Wild Bill, Shipwreck, Lady Jaye and all the rest) were no less inspiring, exemplifying by word and action not only the virtues of the soldier, but the virtues of Americans everywhere: honesty, loyalty, bravery, generosity, tolerance (except for evil), self-sacrifice, the sense of what is good and right, and the willingness to go to any lengths to ensure that the good and the right prevail.

Idealistic? Yes it is. But what’s wrong with idealism? Idealism is what helps us to choose to do what is right rather than what is expedient, what is difficult but worthwhile rather than what is easy, what may cost us in time, money and effort even when there is no immediate or even eventual benefit to ourselves. Idealism is what makes us better as a people, and stronger as a nation. And I’m not forgetting the fact that the toy companies were out to make money, and that the comic books and cartoons were primarily advertising campaigns to that end, but I believe there was a large factor of “doing well by doing good” in the equation.

Surely many of those serving in America’s armed forces today read, watched and were inspired by the adventures of “GI Joe: A Real American Hero”. Now they are the real American heroes, inspiring others with their deeds. I hope that these heroes of today will inspire the creators of tomorrow’s comic books and cartoons, so that they may in turn inspire yet another generation of heroes.