The Armed Forces should just keep their money and play the Bill Murray speech from Stripes at NFL games! That rah rah, rally around the flag" crap I see at baseball and football games is getting old. Kaepernick is about social responsibility and that's what we should be focusing on. Samuel Johnson was right. (False) Patriotism is the last refuse for the scoundrel. The thing we need to worry about is how completely extreme we are in how we see any political discussion that affects us. There is literally a binary, "I'm this or I'm that." And no central ground anywhere. And social media just makes it worse.
The only thing this National Anthem drama has turned into is a rolling case of whose turn is it to grab some free publicity. Everyone is talking about who is disrespecting our National ceremony today. Not how to fix an abuse of power problem. The info in the OP is a misdirect blue herring topic.
Getting old. I remember reading about this and being pissed off that we waste money on stuff like this.
I was on the field for the anthem at a Raiders home game . It was before 2009. The players were on the field.