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 In a twist to its tradition of tracking an animated version of Santa
Claus' sleigh and reindeer as he flies around the globe on December
24, the military is adding the animated fighter plane escort to give
a realistic feel to the popular feature, said a spokesman for the
North American Aerospace Defense Command.
"We wanted to let folks know that, hey, this is a NORAD video, and
we're the military and this is our mission," said the spokesman,
Navy Captain Jeff Davis.
The program sponsored by NORAD drew 22.3 million visitors last year
and generated 114,000 phone calls from around the United States, he
said.
The 2013 video shows Santa, guided by Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer, zooming over snowy mountains with two warplanes on either
side.
Josh Golin, associate director of the Boston-based Campaign for a
Commercial-Free Childhood, called the new campaign "reprehensible"
since it played on children's fears by suggesting that Santa Claus
was vulnerable to attack.
"It's a backdoor way of marketing to kids when they are not supposed
to be recruiting until they are much older," he said.
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NORAD has the job of tracking and intercepting such potential
threats as enemy bombers or ballistic missiles. It has been
sponsoring a Track Santa program since the mid-1950s to highlight
its mission.
Davis said NORAD videos had linked fighter escorts and Santa since
the 1960s, but 2013 marked the first time the planes had been shown
in an animated version.
A video on the NORAD website shows military personnel seemingly
preparing for a test flight by Santa, who has the call sign "Big Red
One."
"We all know that Santa travels faster than starlight," an officer
says in the video, "but this is nothing that our technologies can't
handle."
[By Ian Simpson]
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Von Ahn)
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