Woods Finishes Training at Fort Bragg
This gives a whole new meaning to "Aiming for the pin", eh?
I admire Tiger Woods as much as anyone. Being a golfer myself, I understand just how difficult it is to do the things he does with a golf ball. While I may be fascinated with his golfing skills, I quite honestly have no interest in his off-course escapades. What he does in his own time is his own business, and it should be left at that. Of course, in our celebrity-besotted media culture that is a horribly naive point of view. Given that, I suppose I shouldn't be concerned by the fuss created by Woods going to "basic training" at Ft. Bragg, NC earlier this week. I do find it somewhat disturbing, though.
With American soldiers dying in increasing numbers in Iraq (and to a lesser degree in Afghanistan), what Woods did this week hardly qualifies as anything but a personal indulgence. It was not a publicity stunt, because reporters were barred from covering the events of Woods' "training", but let us not for a moment delude ourselves into thinking that Woods is now on a par with our forces in Iraq.
I am concerned about the unintended message being sent by Woods' foray into the military life. On one level, it does seem to cheapen the sacrifices being made by those fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan- if only because of the amount of column inches devoted to Woods' time at Ft. Bragg.
Of course, golf has a long and honored tradition in the military, so I suppose turnabout is fair play. I'm not going to get myself worked into a tizzy about Tiger Woods making tandem jumps from 13,000 feet- just as long as we all remember the only thing "military" about this escapade was the fact that Woods was wearing a uniform.
And we just LOVE a man in uniform, don't we??
