As Santa Clause gears up to take his annual flight around the world to drop off gifts to boys and girls this holiday season, apparently the U.S. military is going to be giving him an escort by fighter jets.
Each year the U.S. military hosts a digital program that allows people to tune in and watch St. Nick make his rounds across the globe. The mock missions was viewed by roughly 22 million people who called or logged in to get "real-time" updates on the trip to let their children see Santa's progress.
This year, to the dismay of many children's advocates, the program will include two military jets, complete with missiles and other defensive equipment accompanying Santa's sleigh as he soars through the sky with Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer at the front.
The Boston Globe reports adding the jets is "part of the effort to give the program more of an operational feel," according to Navy Captain Jeff A. Davis, a spokesperson for the command that sponsors the event, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD.
The stream is already available as a preview online and many are questioning the wisdom behind adding destructing weapons into the image of Santa joyfully delivering presents to children around the world.
"Children associate Santa with gifts and fun and everything else that is positive about Christams," said Allen Kanner, a Calif. child and family psychologist and co-founder of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. "They are associating this with the military in children's minds. It is completely out of line."
NORAD has been sponsoring the Track Santa program since the mid-1950s to draw attention to its radar-tracking and jet scrambling capabilities. In addition to the 22 million viewers the program received last year, the Track Santa program has 1.2 million mobile downloads; fielded 114,000 phone calls and was staffed by 1,200 volunteers. This year the website will be available in eight languages.
"I think people are quite aware of the military's true mission," said Amy Hagopian, a professor of public health at the University of Washington, who has written extensively about military recruiting of youngsters. "If the military wants to keep its ranks stocked, it needs to appeal to children. The military knows it can't appeal to adults to volunteer. It is like the ad industry.''
