October 3, 2018

The Pentagon Just Released This Ridiculous Cartoon and the Internet Can’t Stop Laughing

No more enemies, only “bad guys” to fight.

Department of Defense

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The Department of Defense unveiled a snazzy website redesign today, capping off what chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White called a “long overdue” change and a way to “more completely share our military’s story with the American people.”

That strategy apparently included the production of a two-minute animated video which explains the five branches of the military using puns, cartoon pirates, and many ominous references not to mortal enemies with weapons of mass destruction, but “bad guys.”

We’re not kidding.


“While there’ve been plenty of movies about our armed forces, most tend to exaggerate what our military does, day in and day out,” we’re told by a kindly-voiced narrator. “Here’s the real scoop about the Department of Defense and how our military keeps you safe!” 

First up is the Army, which we apparently includes as many people “as the population of Atlanta.” Their job is “to fight and win our nation’s wars.” 

The Navy, lest we forget, is “all about the water. They work on it, above it, and below it.” Because of America’s naval power, “things like food, electronics, and cars” can travel the seas safely. Our naval forces also, apparently, fight really cute cartoon pirates!

The Marine Corps are “a bad guy’s worst nightmare.” They come from “sea and air to fight adversaries on land and they are very, very good at it.” 

The Air Force has our back in the “air, space, and cyberspace.”

They drop bombs too—or, as the half-glass-full narrator puts it, fight “bad guys all around the world.” 

Bringing up the rear is the Coast Guard: “a drug dealer’s worst enemy and a boater’s best friend.” 

The video rocketed around social media on Wednesday, but might not have garnered the type of reaction DoD was expecting. Here are a few responses: 

https://twitter.com/davegershgorn/status/1047578789193142272

Spencer Ackerman, a national security reporter for the Daily Beast, may have had the most common reaction. 

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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