It was just two seconds long, but oh what a two seconds it was.
In a Tweet celebrating the U.S. Army’s 247th birthday Tuesday, the Army National Guard included a quick video snippet of something very un-U.S. Army-like.
Archival footage of Nazis riding on tanks during World War II.
The Tweet has since been removed and when contacted by The War Zone, the National Guard Bureau acknowledged the mistake.
“The tweet you mention was posted by an Army National Guard Twitter account,” National Guard Bureau spokesman Kurt M. Rauschenberg told The War Zone Wednesday. “Regrettably, the team who produced the social media video was unaware that the clip, sourced from a DVIDS [Defense Visual Information Distribution Service] clip featuring footage from the U.S. Army Center of Military History, involved a German tank.”
Faster than you can say “macht schnell,” Twitter reacted aghast. And that caused the National Guard to react.
“Immediately after a comment was made about the tank in question, the clip was removed and edited,” Rauschenberg said. “This was an honest mistake as it was meant to depict historical footage in association with the Army’s 247th birthday.”
Don’t feel bad, National Guard, you weren’t the only ones to flub an Army 247th birthday message.
On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn) sent out a Tweet honoring the “great service and sacrifice by our U.S. Army.”
But there was just one problem.
Among the images was the iconic picture of the American flag being raised on Iwo Jima’s Mt. Suribachi taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for what would become the most reproduced photo in history.
Great Halls of Montazuma! Everyone knows it was ‘Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children’ who raised that flag.
So, like the National Guard Bureau, Hagerty corrected his Army birthday greeting. His Twitter account took out the Mt. Suribachi photo, replacing it with a picture of saluting soldiers in front of an American flag.
Not to worry though. Hagerty is ahead of the game. He can use that picture on Nov. 10, the 247th anniversary of the Marine Corps. Or Feb. 23, 2023, the 78th anniversary of the Mt. Suribachi flag raising.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com