JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

There is something lingering and heartbreaking about this image found in Popular Mechanics for July, 1920. The image shows a refitted tank being used as a curious ride at an amusement park. No doubt people wanted to put WWI behind them, as the end of the war was still only two years old or so, and the imagery of millions of people killed during the conflict was still very recent, with the hardships and loss still quite present in the minds of nearly everyone in the world.  That said, the image of the smiling faces on the retrofitted tanks a bit much, seeming to be this side of disrespectful. Seeing the “Jeep” brand doesn’t affect me like this–as the logo has almost nothing left in connection to the WWII vehicle, though I do feel a bit annoyed when I see a deluxe High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle  HMMWV, or Humvee) tooling around in the suburbs, begging attention in its mostly-useless incarnation, carrying with them the memory of hundreds of U.S. soldiers being killed in them. I just don’t like the idea of desensitizing the imagery of these vehicles into something sugary.