Falsely Patriotic

While patiently waiting for my plane to take off, I began to make light conversation with the passenger sitting next to me. Turns out, he was in basic training at Fort Bragg military base, attempting to become a chemical warfare specialist. He began talking to my mom and me about being deployed to Syria, and when my mom finally interjected, asking whether it was a sure thing that troops would be sent out, he gave her a look that everyone there understood. After that, conversation died down, and all three of us put our earphones in. Per use, I went to a country music playlist, and shuffled my ipod. I couldn't stop thinking about what this man had said. The second song that came on was a song entitled "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" by Toby Keith. Keith is widely known as the most patriotic, America-loving artist in current music. Whenever I listened to this song, I would immediately feel more patriotic, and feel "high on America" as my friend Brian put it when he first heard it. For the first time, I didn't feel the same energy from of the song as I usually did, but instead, multiple lyrics bothered me. Lines like "We'll light up your world, like the fourth of July",  referring to how America handles military conduct made me feel almost embarrassed of my country. The lyric that really got to me was: "An' yo'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A. 'Cos well put a boot in your ass, it's the American way". The rest of the lyrics can be found here. This line openly states that if you disagree with America, we'll immediately resort to violence to solve our problems. Of course no one would assume that because Toby Keith says something in a song, those are the political standards the U.S chooses to uphold, but these ideals are what the next generation is hearing every day. After the song finished, many of the lyrics kept echoing in my brian. I realized that although I consider myself to be a fairly patriotic person, I know so little about what is actually going on in Syria: America's biggest current event. The man sitting to my left will be fighting for our country's safety, and the majority of the U.S. won't know any of the root causes of this conflict, including me. When I got home, I did some further studying on the conflict, and realized how little I actually knew. I had no idea the conflict started almost 30 months ago, or that there have been over 100,000 deaths in just over two years.  I also found it crazy that although Obama said that we wouldn't be sending troops over, even someone as low down on the chain of command as my seat mate could say with certainty troops would be on the ground soon enough. It also never clicked for me that this man is in the chemical defense unit, and just under a month ago, a huge chemical attack hit a suburb of Damascus. This was arguably the most deadly attack this conflict has seen yet (BBC), and this kid could be right in the middle of things in less than a year. I recently stumbled upon a syria conflict quiz to test your knowledge that the NY Times put out and I received a 5/12 (rough right?). You can find the quiz by clicking this link. I'd love to hear the score everyone received in the comments section. Although not everyone can meet a soldier on a plane, while coincidently listening to patriotic music in order to enlighten themselves, I highly suggest everyone who reads this and isn't already fluent in this mater decides to study up. I certainly hope the man next to me on the plane will be safe if he is deployed, and I want to thank him for opening my eyes to this conflict.