By Peter Barry Chowka
This weekend, on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I and the 99th anniversary of the first Armistice Day (renamed in 1954 Veterans Day to commemorate not only the 1918 truce but to honor all veterans), neither CNN or MSNBC has any special programming scheduled. Fox News, meanwhile, has announced a new hour-long prime-time commemorative special, Modern Warriors, scheduled to air Sunday, November 11 at 8 PM ET/PT.
The Fox program is hosted by Pete Hegseth, himself a veteran and the former executive director of Vets for Freedom. A graduate of Princeton University, Hegseth currently serves as a Fox News contributor and one of the co-hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend.
The format for Modern Warriors is a roundtable discussion with Hegseth and four decorated military veterans, including Dakota Meyer, a Marine veteran of the war in Afghanistan who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2011 by President Obama for his heroic actions during a 2009 battle. (Meyer married Bristol Palin, the daughter of Sarah Palin, in 2016 but they were divorced earlier this year.) Other participants in the Fox News program are former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, retired U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell, and former SEAL Rob O’Neill, the latter who is credited with delivering the fatal shot that took out Osama Bin Laden during a raid on the Al Qaeda leader’s hideout in Pakistan in 2011. O’Neill is the author of No Easy Day, a memoir about his role in the killing of bin Laden. Luttrell wrote Lone Survivor, the book that inspired the 2013 movie of the same name starring Mark Wahlberg. Parnell is the author of the memoir Outlaw Platoon and the new novel Man of War. According to Fox News, the men will “reminisce about war, combat, military morale today and why they served.”
A preview clip of Modern Warriors shows the five participants in an informal private dining room-type setting similar to the set of the occasional Fox News show Wise Guys hosted by William Bennett. Wise Guys will move to Fox’s new online subscription streaming service Fox Nation that is scheduled to launch on November 27. The page at Fox News dot com highlighting Modern Warriors notes that for people who sign up for Fox Nation on Sunday, November 11 (Veterans Day), a $5 donation will be made to the non-profit 501C-3 charity Folds of Honor, which supports “serving the families of our fallen and disabled service-members.”
Peter Barry Chowka writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @pchowka.
