So, a soldier is coming home after a tour in Iraq, and he wants to surprise his kids. So he puts himself in a box and pops out in the middle of a class assembly (?). This is so exploitative both in an individual and general sense.

1) The actual kids are being exploited. Call me crazy, but I wouldn't want my emotional experiences as a child videotaped, broadcast on the news, or even performed in front of all my classmates as though I were a circus freak. The zoom in on the girl crying is just icing on the exploitative cake. That little girl is no longer an individual, but rather a symbolic and patriotic icon. How inappropriate.

2) The rest of the students are being exploited by being a part of this propaganda. Seriously, a school assembly just to make something "heart warming" that "supports the troops"? Only in Kentucky. Unfortunately, the Kentucky syndrome is spreading through the rest of this country. Only the east coast and California seem un-infected at this point....but we are barely holding on.

3) The father is exploiting himself and doing a disservice to the rest of the troops. This video will give viewers that warm fuzzy feeling when they watch it. They shouldn't have that warm fuzzy feeling.....because there are still a ridiculous number of soldiers still out there. This helps us forget about them, and the ones that died, and the 10's and 10's of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have died already. There shouldn't be a "feel good story of the year" in one of the more tragic situations in American history.