When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, among the seven-hundred-odd journalists who embedded with combat units were few who were familiar with the military in any intimate way. To many critics, especially those with military experience, this revealed itself in the press’s coverage of the war, which they felt often missed the mark when it came to explaining the hows and the whys of the fight, as well as the mundane realities of military life and culture.

Perhaps very recently they've started to evaluate hearing more closely, but when I returned from Iraq six months ago, we sat down for a simple hearing test like the one we did before we deployed. My roommate already was legally deaf in one ear and wasn't supposed to deploy, but he did anyway. He was on a patrol when an IED targeting dismounts went off right next to him, sending him sprawling to the ground with a concussion. He sat out for a few weeks to recover.

Back in the states, hearing in his bad ear was even worse than when he left. The only compensation, he was told, was free hearing aids for life.

The rest of us weren't lucky enough to receive that kind of slap in the face. Tests that showed degenerated hearing were looked at with suspicion and doubt, as if we had overstated our problems.

He then posts a video to illustrate the kind of noise troops are dealing with. The guns firing along with him are two M16's and a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon).



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I had a trick where I covered my ear with my right index finger when my rifle was resting on the ledge. This did little but was far better than the cumbersome foam earplugs we were given. It's too little, too late for those of us who were already given our hearing to the wars. I'm now in a customer service job where I answer the phone constantly, and I can't use my left ear with the receiver.

Logically, we know this soldier has possibly killed people in Iraq, so it feels misplaced to vent about a puppy in a war zone; emotionally, we find hurting a helpless puppy beyond reproach. If the video weren't shot in Iraq (if it were, say, some tweens torturing a dog in a backyard -- you'll find plenty of this on YouTube), the tension wouldn't be there, and it wouldn't be today's viral hit. The contradiction -- people vs. puppies; war vs. peace-keeping -- will probably catapult this thing to network nightly news.

The named Marine returned to Hawaii in October from Haqlaniyah, Iraq, after a seven-month deployment, Maj. Chris Perrine, a Marine spokesman, told the Honolulu Advertiser.

"We're still trying to figure out, is this a legitimate video?" Perrine told the newspaper. "Was it edited? Is it [that Marine] who's in it? We don't know. We'll find that out hopefully sooner rather than later."

But I'm not writing to say what a bad guy this Marine is for throwing the puppy like he does. That's obvious. I'm not writing to implicate the whole Marine Corps for the act of two goofballs who are not representative of our troops over there...No, I'm writing about our reaction as a society. I have now seen this story everywhere from all over the internet to the local news. Everyone is outraged. Are you kidding me? We caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and we're outraged over a puppy?!

In the chaotic, intense house-to-house gun battles with insurgent fighters during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah, the point man of Lima Company’s 1st Platoon barreled his way through gunfire and exploding grenades...Several times during missions from Nov. 9-11, 2004, Stokes braved enemy fire — “fearless in the face of danger,” according to the Marine Corps — to kill insurgents and enable his platoon to gain control of houses...On Nov. 17, 2004, after a grenade exploded near him, wounding him, the private managed to continue to use his weapon so the fire teams could reassemble and launch a counterattack.

His work ethic and attitude prompted us to ask, almost beg, for his promotion. No matter what our argument (“He’s smart,” “He’s got charisma,” “Marines around listen when he talks because he’s dead on with his analysis,” “Give him rank, he’s not the drug pop that we thought we were getting hosed with, he’s making a difference”) the command couldn’t budge around the time restriction involved in his demotion; Pvt Stokes would remain a Private for the rest of the deployment no matter what he did or was capable of.

The first man sees a lot, and a lot rests on his shoulders. The Marines behind him depend on what the point man passes back when enemy contact occurs, the squad leader’s plan is dependent on that flash of information the point man gives. Pvt Stokes found a deadly rhythm as the point man for second squad. Whenever a fight broke out, he would either kill the enemy immediately himself, or if he couldn’t give out a quick situation update so his squad could close with and kill.

“To protect his family from worry, he told them before he left and during his third tour that his ship, the Bonhomme Richard, was stopping at different ports around the world and was not going to go to Iraq,” Leupp said by e-mail. “He had already been through so much during his first two tours. Sean was supposed to just see the world by stopping at different ports. So we thought he was safe during his third and we hoped his last deployment. But not the way we hoped.”

Combat Stress is alarmed at the huge increase in veterans from the Falklands, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, who come knocking on their door for help. A few are still turning up suffering long-term effects from the second world war and Korea. The oldest applicant for help recently was aged 100.

The problems of veterans today are compounded by the widespread recognition through much of the army that the Iraq campaign is unpopular, nasty, unpredictable and brutal—and, in the views of a significant minority of soldiers and officers in private conversation, a pretty unnecessary conflict at that. In the first and second world wars, the plight of service personnel was shared by almost everyone in the land. More than 1 million soldiers served in Northern Ireland over 30 or so years, so that became part of the national experience.

But combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a national experience, and the services are worried that they appear in the minds of many now to be detached from most of British national life. Though more American soldiers have been involved—more than 3,000 killed and nearly 50,000 injured, physically or mentally—Iraq is not a shared experience nationally for Americans in the way that Vietnam was.

A well-trained fighting machine reduced to nothing more than an empty shell.  Combat stress is their calvary, the infantry to fight off their demons.  They were protecting you, now they need your help.

Moss was nearly dead as the Black Hawk landed at the battalion aid station at Orgun-E, about 20 miles from the site of the ambush.

Collier signaled wildly over the roar of the helicopter’s engines to alert the aid-station staff that this was no ordinary patient.

Oh recalled that it wasn’t apparent just how delicate the situation was until they began cutting away Moss’s combat uniform and unraveling all the gauze bandages.

When he saw the tail fin of the RPG round, he yelled, “everybody get out!”

“I had never even seen an RPG before, but I figured anything with a rod and fins on it had to be a rocket of some kind.”

Oh asked for volunteers to stay in the operating room and help him save Moss’s life. Several soldiers raised their hands.