Yesterday at the movies with WWP, there was an ad run for the United States Marines. You may have seen it, it shows Marines in dress uniform evenly spaced across our nation's landmarks. As it panned to landmark after landmark, we both saw the same thing at the same time: Gauno Point at the Grand Canyon.
It is a familiar place to both of us, since we were just there a few weeks ago. And it's very distinguishable. Fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say.
It bugged me though, that to advertise the US Marines, they put them on a point in an Indian Reservation. To me that seems like lining up a bunch of US Marines in front of the Sidney Opera House, or the Roman Coliseum. It just feels wrong.
WWP and I argued a bit over whether it was appropriate, him saying it's a piece of Americana to show the Grand Canyon in the US Military ad, me saying it's a bit rude to show a piece of a Native American Reservation (where the US Military stuffed the natives against their wills 150 years ago) with US Military all lined up on it's edges (especially when there's so much of the Grand Canyon that actually does belong to the Federal Government).
All in all, it was a pointless argument. WWP found a blog entry (altho it is a Marine blog, not a Hualapai Tribe blog) that described the photo shoot day and has a handful of behind the scenes photos.
It appears that the Hualapai were honored by the presence of the US Military on their land. And since it's theirs to decide, I'm ok with that. I still think it's a little odd.
Related: See my picture of Guano Point without the Marines here.
One Comment
Aren't Native Americans part of America? Don't Marines protect America? Were the Marines even around when the Army stuffed those Native Americans on the Res?