Padres cancel dog tag giveaway, hand out posters to kids instead

Children who attended Sunday's "Military Opening Day" at Petco Park were given a free poster featuring members of the San Diego Padres.

But if the team had followed through on its original plan, those kids would have received a set of Padres-branded dog tags instead.

As the Padres-centric blog Gaslamp Ball reported last month, the team nixed its original dog-tag giveaway idea when it garnered some opposition on the Internet. One person�started an online petition ? which has received 146 virtual signatures ?to ask the Padres to "end all promotions targeting children."

"OK, so you want to honor veterans ? no issue there," wrote Kap Fulton, the petition's organizer. "How about starting with the homeless vets that are herded out of eyeshot from Petco Park? Shouldn't we take care of those men and women before recruiting new eight-year-olds to serve as cannon fodder?"

Despite San Diego being a big military town, Fulton says he wants the Padres to stop associating baseball and war. And like someone who believes that candy cigarettes predisposes children toward smoking, he apparently believes that receiving something like a dog tag could gear children toward military service.

Since I usually dabble in pacifism, I don't disagree with the spirit of Fulton's peace-loving sentiment. I also agree that handing away items primarily used to identify wounded and dead soldiers does seem a bit morbid when only children are receiving them.

Of course, the part where Fulton is wrong is that there is nothing wrong with making the brave decision to serve your country and describing soldiers as "cannon fodder" is offensive to those who make the decision to enlist. It's also a gigantic, Petco Park outfield-sized leap to assume that one giveaway would coerce a child into a military commitment he or she didn't want to make.

Look, dog tags are also a simple, yet powerful reminder of the sacrifice that all of our military members make. The main mistake that I think the Padres made in originally scheduling the giveaway was limiting the offer only to children. Handing them out to everyone would have put the handout into a proper perspective.

What do you think? Did the Padres make the right call in canceling the giveaway?

Big BLS H/N: Joy of Sox

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Padres-cancel-dog-tag-giveaway-hand-out-posters?urn=mlb-wp2987

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