I saw a bumper sticker today that read "If you're reading this, thank a teacher. If you're reading this in English, thank a SOLDIER." (I didn't take a picture because I'm not that organized.)
This puzzled me (although I don't pretend to be naive enough to not get the implied message*) because, lol whut?
I mean, the last time we fought a war with someone that actually wanted to take over our country to the extent of changing the very language that we speak was, like, the war of 1812. Or at most, the Spanish-American War**. I suppose you could make a case that Germany or Japan*** could have wanted to take over America if WWII had dragged on, even though they never expressed any interest in owning us to the degree of changing our culture and language. (They just wanted to bomb the shit out of us so we'd stop helping Britain.)
So this sticker seems a bit retro to me. I don't think anyone is going around not-thanking the WWII vets to the point that we need a bitchy stickery reminder.
* Arab terrorists don't want to take over America and make us speak Arabic. They just want to break us. Not the same thing.
** We had a Spanish-American War?
***I ignore Italy because aww, look at your attempt at fascism, how cute you are - see Eddie Izzard for a better joke here.
