Soldier's Home : The Media

In the News: Night Patrols, Psych Units, and Military Town Money

David Botti — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:53:53 GMT

News roundup:

*Bill Ardolino of The Long War Journal takes his readers along on a night patrol with U.S. soldiers and members of a Baghdad neighborhood watch called Sons of Iraq:

Co-founded seven months ago by local leaders and members of the 82nd Airborne, the Al Sadria branch of the neighborhood watch is composed of about 250 members who are paid by and coordinate with American units. The branch is responsible for a series of predominantly Shia neighborhoods in central Baghdad that include part of the Shorja Market. Though leader Faris Abdul-Hassan refers to his group as “the first Shia Awakening” against criminals and terrorists, he refuses to hire anyone with sectarian allegiances.

According to Ardolino, with a decrease in the number of U.S. troops, the Sons of Iraq have been successful in shouldering the burden of peacekeeping in their own section of Baghdad. While the final goal is integration with the Iraqi police, many in the Sons of Iraq are weary of high infiltration rates within the police by members of the Mahdi Army. See a photo slideshow of the patrol here.

*The Marine Corps Times reports that the Navy plans to expand the number of mobile psychiatric teams embedded within Marine units. A bit of context: the Marine Corps doesn't have its own medical services, but rather relies on the Navy to provide personnel (the Marine Corps is part of the Department of the Navy). The units, known as Navy Operational Stress Control and Readiness (or OSCAR), should number at 23 within two years. The purpose is to provide initial psychiatric counseling to Marines while they are still serving out in the field:

“We want to put mental health professionals with our small-unit leaders,” Navy Surgeon General Vice Adm. Adam Robinson said. “We think if we can train them there. Tere’s a real synergy that can come. We can be there to help with treatment, training and surveillance.”

*One doesn't see much reporting out of Basra these days, but the New York Times Baghdad Bureau blog has an interesting piece today. An Iraqi member of the Times staff took a four-day reporting trip to Basra to see just what the situation is there. Some selections:

I stopped for a while and I saw many Iraqi Army cars riddled with bullets. I saw troops deployed everywhere I looked: on the roof of every high building, every road intersection, occupying government offices that before were occupied by political factions.

I was shocked when I saw traces of the fight, which was clear on the buildings close to the main streets.

As an Iraqi from the south who knows exactly what was going on, with the militias controlling everything in particular cities or ports, I did not expect that the Iraqi forces – which are majority Shia - would be able to confront the militia influence.

There was a new feeling. I had never seen before the Iraq Army, without hesitation, accusing the Mahdi Army of being involved in all the disorder there.

One of the soldiers told me: “The Mahdi Army are a group of criminals, they will destroy everything if we don’t stop them.”

In the past, I have never seen soldiers dare to say anything about them. I felt the reign of fear is broken, and that is it. Exactly the same feeling as when the Baathist regime fell.

*Military.com recently posted an article taking a look at the rise in per capita income within military communities:

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could be behind the jumps in income, according to experts. Combat pay and re-enlistment bonuses for professional soldiers, combined with the activation of National Guard and Reserve units, put more money in the bank accounts of personnel shipping out of Fort Bragg, said David G. Lenze of the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, which issued the income data.

According to the piece, in North Carolina two major military communities ranked first and second in areas of the state with the highest per capita growth. The first of these, the Fort Bragg area, saw personal income rise more than $8,900 over five years. Military towns in Georgia and Tennessee saw these numbers rise by between 35 and 37 percent.

New Looks at Military Blogging

David Botti — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:09:09 GMT

Since the start of the Iraq war, the importance and viability of military blogs has stirred up tremendous debate. There have been issues of military censorship, journalistic viability, and ethical dilemmas. Recently, talk of where (and how) military blogs fit into the war's narrative has seemed to intensify to some degree. Here's a look at what's happening:

The Columbia Journalism Review published a lengthy article in its last issue profiling Bill Roggio, a U.S.-based military blogger who's set up his own media operation aimed at reporting on terrorism and "small wars" beyond what the mainstream media can do. Before the piece gets to Roggio, the intro takes a look at the gap military blogs aim to fill:

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.

Army veteran Roggio first started blogging about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to put the events in perspective for his family. But, as CJR notes, a transformation took place that's changed the way Roggio operates—and underscores the significance these blogs can have:

It was during the second battle for Fallujah in November 2004, however, that he began to focus his effort. He had been posting detailed battle maps of Iraq’s Anbar province on his site, showing where Marine and Army units were meeting the stiffest resistance from insurgent groups who harassed them with roadside bombs and the occasional ambush. In the spring of 2005, a new group of readers began logging on to Roggio’s site. The Marines in Anbar province were embroiled in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, and looking for any tactical advantage they could find. Officers with the Regimental Combat Team 2 discovered Roggio’s site and began using it as an information source, calling his site the “Command Chronology of Western Iraq.”

While Roggio continues to build up his Long War Journal, a contributing writer to An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog said he was recently fired from his job working for a USCG contractor after writing posts critical of the branch. Mike McGrath, who comes from a Coast Guard family, wrote of his firing:

Was told that my position would have been downsized anyways within the next few months, my behavior on the blog sites just made it easier to make me the first to go...Did I mention that I just had my performance evals completed within the last 2 weeks, scored perfect all across the board, got a raise (which I will never see) and that there was no indication from anybody that there was anything wrong occurring; no feedback, no counseling, no pointing out of where I might be violating any written policy, nothing - no indication whatsoever.

There's a brand new beginning for British military bloggers detailed by the Guardian. Corporal Lachlan MacNeil will be one of the first British soldiers allowed to blog about his experiences during an upcoming Afghanistan deployment. He'll be blogging directly for the Guardian, but as the paper points out this is quite rare:

Last year, the MoD introduced new guidelines barring military personnel from speaking about their service publicly. Soldiers, sailors and airforce personnel are not able to blog, take part in surveys, speak in public, post on bulletin boards, play multiplayer computer games or send text messages or photographs without the permission of a superior if any information they use concerns matters of defence.

Wired's Danger Room blog wrote of a 2006 U.S. Army report that considered secretly hiring military bloggers to "promote a specific message." The military's comment on the story is that this report was simply an educational exercise intended to be thought-provoking. Here's an excerpt from the Joint Special Operations University report titled "Blogs and Military Information Strategy":

The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.

Finally, PBS show Frontline has this "making of" video taking a look at a new documentary following Army soldiers in Iraq. One of the featured soldiers is the founder of milblogging.com. As the website explains:

To record their war, from private reflections to real-time footage of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on the ground, director Deborah Scranton (The War Tapes) creates a "virtual embed," supplying cameras to the soldiers of the Bad Voodoo Platoon and working with them to shape an intimate portrait that reveals the hard grind of their war.

A Roundup of Iraq Anniversary Coverage

David Botti — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:13:34 GMT

The fifth anniversary of the Iraq war is about to come upon us, and so too will an endless amount of media coverage on the issue. Later in the week I'll be writing up some personal reflections on the anniversary, but today I've compiled some of the better anniversary stories that have already popped up. First, take a look at NEWSWEEK's in-depth look at where the Army stands (plus these great video interviews with soldiers now in Iraq), and then see below for how other stories address the past five years.

On Sunday The New York Times gave former Baghdad bureau chief John F. Burns a few column inches to give his take on where the war has taken us. Burns penned this article at the war's outset which I've always considered to be an amazing piece of journalism. For Sunday's article, Burns, who spent five years in Iraq, reflects on his position as a journalist covering the war; and on the larger meaning for both the U.S. and Iraq. As his opening line puts it ("Five years on, it seems positively surreal"), Burns seems in awe of the course the war has taken; and frustrated over miscalculations that occurred. He writes of watching the first U.S. air strikes from a Baghdad roof:

...from that first impact, among many on the roof, the mood was scarcely one of cool detachment, or at least not as cautioned as it might have been by the longer-term implications of what we were seeing. Part of it, no doubt, was the air show — the sheer, astonishing, overwhelming demonstration of power, more like an act of God than man, unleashing in those watching from the roof something approaching awe. But the larger part, the one that seems surreal now in the light of all that has followed, was the sense that, with the beginning of the end of Saddam Hussein’s evil, the suffering of millions of ordinary Iraqis that we had chronicled, and pitied, was ending.

For an international view of the fifth anniversary, take a listen to four top BBC journalists who discuss what arose from the rubble of Saddam's regime, and the wider impact on other Arab states. The introductory text to the radio documentary has this telling observation:

It's been said that, if 11th September 2001 was the day the world changed for America, then 20th March 2003 was the day America changed for the world.

IAVA blogger Ray Kimball, an Army major and Iraq vet, reflects on leading his men through the opening days of the war and how he still thinks about the choices he made:

Five years later, looking back on it, different fears come to the fore. Did the choices that I made during those weeks shape what happened later? What could I have done differently? I remember distinctly driving by groups of looters who were busy dragging all they could grab out of government buildings. At the time, I decided that it was probably appropriate that ordinary Iraqis, who had been under Saddam’s thumb for so long, were finally getting some of theirs back. We now know that some of that looting destroyed critical infrastructure that would be vital in the coming months in trying to get a new Iraqi government on its feet. Hindsight is always 20-20, and yet, there is still the nagging feeling that I could have made different choices that might have helped lead to different outcomes.

The LA Daily News provided this look at a group using the anniversary to protest the war as part of a larger, worldwide series of such events. While the protest was attended by celebrities, as well as Vietnam vet Ron Kovic (of Born On the Fourth of July), the article offered a particularly telling moment: when two Iraq vets were noticed watching the protest, the reporter notes:

-"We have a surplus of hippies and a shortage of hand grenades," [the vet] said. He said the war cost him his marriage, and that he saw some of his friends die.

-The back of his sign read, "My sacrifice was not in vain."

-Several protesters walked up and greeted him, said he looked angry and offered him a hug - he declined - and asked how they could make him happy

-His response: "Go home."

New Jersey's Gloucester County Times took a look at how the war has affected a wide spectrum of people: from veterans, to family, to a VA worker. Marine Richard J. Maxie Jr. told the paper:

Despite the calls to bring the troops home, the constant media attention surrounding the war and the coming election, Maxie is steadfast in believing that the troops have accomplished something good in Iraq.

"They only see the bad things," said Maxie said of the media's portrayal of the war. "They don't really know kids are going to school and the Iraqis can go into the streets and not have to watch over their shoulders all the time.

Angelo Romeo, a local VA director, told the paper his impressions of what the newest vets coming home face:

Romeo says of the ones he has talked to that most of them are holding their experiences inside. He recalled hearing an instance about the friend of a new veteran who was complaining about a stressful day at work.

The soldier had served as an explosives detonation expert.

"I've seen them in social situations with their friends from high school and college. There's a bit of a disconnect."

The Iraq war's fifth anniversary isn't the only Iraq anniversary occurring this week. It was 20 years ago when Saddam Hussein killed at last 5,000 Kurds in chemical bombing attacks.

There's sure to be much more Iraq war anniversary coverage through the week. Stay tuned.

Breakdown of Where War Stands in Public's Eyes

David Botti — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:11:22 GMT

Here's a quick breakdown of the new Pew Research Center Study that finds the media and public are loosing sight of the war. If you read this blog, I assume you're not one of them. But here are the numbers anyway:

28% of the public is aware that nearly 4,000 troops have been killed in Iraq over the past five years.
Nearly 50% think the number of U.S. deaths is 3,000 or fewer.
23% of the public think the number of U.S. deaths is higher than 4,000.
In earlier surveys nearly half of the respondents recalled the correct number of deaths.
In 2007 the median of Iraq-associated news stories was 15% of all news stories.
During the last week in January, 36% of those surveyed said they were most closely following campaign news; 14% the stock market; 12% the death of Heath Ledger; and 6% the war in Iraq.
And, as the Associated Press quotes the survey director: "All education levels in the recent survey were similarly uninformed."

The LA Times posts a photo slide show from the 2003 invasion next to their summary of the Pew survey. Whether they were trying to be ironic or not, you might want to take a short trip back to that time; a time when you couldn't get the war off of the TV.

Veteran Vs. Veteran: A Visit to Washington

David Botti — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:03:59 GMT

Thirty-seven years after John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) descended upon Washington, D.C. to protest against U.S. atrocities in Vietnam, a new generation of veterans will do the same later this week. The group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is heading to the Capital as part of an event called Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan, named after the similar VVAW event four decades ago. As IVAW puts it:

The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support.

There hasn't been much U.S. press coverage on the event, but the UK's Sunday Times, using the headline of "Patriot Missiles," had a lengthy magazine story on the subject:

The veterans are not against the military and seek not to indict it – instead they seek to shine a light on the bigger picture: that the Abu Ghraib prison regime and the Haditha massacre of innocent Iraqis are not isolated incidents perpetrated by “bad seeds” as the military suggests, but evidence of an endemic problem. They will say they were tasked to do terrible things and point the finger up the chain of command, which ignores, diminishes or covers up routine abuse and atrocities.

Other veterans, and vet bloggers, aren't thrilled with this event. A group called "Stop the Slander," described as a "coalition of concerned veterans, family members, and friends," has even published a guide for reporter's covering IVAW. The guide warns journalists that claims made by IVAW may be untrue. The guide even provides an acronym to follow of questions to ask:

D: Date(s) – When did the incident occur?
U: Unit(s) – What military units were involved?
P: Personnel – What are the names of the participants and witnesses?
E: Event(s) – What exactly happened exactly where?
S: Signature(s) – Was this reported at the time or later and were reports, affidavits or depositions signed, or will they now be signed?

Veterans For Freedom blogger, Mark Seavey, took his own critical look at the IVAW's preparations for the Winter Soldier event, but in the end wrote that both sides of the debate should be heard -- without unnecessary contest or debate:

I think it speaks well of IVAW that they expect all testimony to be true and verifiable. And there will plenty of eyes there to ensure that. Hopefully we can all say our piece, discuss our views and then go home with no violence on anyone’s part.

The term "Winter Soldier" is derived from Thomas Paine's passage intended to motivate George Washington's troops suffering at Valley Forge:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

This is generating a huge amount of debate within the vocal veterans community. What's interesting to note is that perhaps the only demographic who can debate IVAW, without being called-out on their lack of service, is other veterans. The issues goes above someone's service record, and shows how the fabled, and perhaps cliched, military bond can only go so far in such times of controversy. Or, is it still there, above all the ruckus? We'll soon find out.

A New Times Baghdad Blog Gets the Details Right

David Botti — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:05:21 GMT

On Wednesday the New York Times began a new blog written by correspondents in the paper's Baghdad bureau. The blog is billed as a chance for readers to discover stories from Iraq that lay beyond the spatial and stylistic constraints of traditional newspaper stories. Thursday's post offered up a great look at a story that's become vastly underreported as the war continues: the American soldier. Politics, sectarian strife, diplomacy, and infrastructure concerns have all but superseded any meaningful embedded coverage, in the mainstream media at least.

Enter Thursday's post: a look at how a unit of Army soldiers spend their nighttime moments when the work day is through. This passage is very telling, and right on. Nighttime, in those last minutes before a soldier falls asleep, is virtually the only moment he or she has alone:

For these soldiers, the day is spent as one — one platoon, one mission, a single role for each soldier with a collective goal to make the operation work.

I have found that something unique happens when you are with soldiers at night.

Then, when the job is done and there is no more light to work by, they can finally rest. While some choose to sleep, some play video games, some eat and some simply think. The only time they can disband from one another is at night. When the closest thing to quiet and privacy comes, they take it.

For a wonderful series of accompanying photographs click here.

In Advance of the War's 5th Anniversary

David Botti — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:02:41 GMT

The fifth anniversary of the start of our war in Iraq is a little more than a month away. There will be retrospectives looking back to those early days of shock and awe, in addition to news analysis and the nation's self-reflection. Even a month out from the anniversary, conversations about the upcoming day seem to revolve around the same theme: "can you believe it's already been five years?" It is a sobering thought. And even if you believe in the war, or are staunchly at odds with its premise, five years is a unit of time to view not so much in length, but in the various phases that occurred.

The summer of 2003, as I saw it, was a honeymoon period. The optimism for Iraq's future still ran high (at least in some circles), and at the same time I could see questionable expressions on the faces of Iraq's citizens as we patrolled past them. No one knew how it would all play out. Personally the fragile tensions that held together a shaky peace ended on November 12, when a suicide bomber destroyed the building in An Nasiriyah that at one time was my platoon's headquarters.

Homecoming was also different. There were no VA scandals, or talk of PTSD, or advocacy groups comprised of Iraq veterans. We simply came home and quickly immersed ourselves back into civilian life. To watch how that has changed is to examine the evolution of the war in Iraq and on the home front. To ask a veteran about his or her experiences in Iraq yields not an overall glimpse into the war, but an occasion to see just one phase of it. This is what needs to be remembered as the anniversary coverage begins. I remember seeing soldiers entering Iraq July 2003 and feeling bad for them. They'd missed the defining war of our generation. They would spend a few months in post-invasion mopping up, and go home on the tail end of the operation. Of course, the irony in this cannot be overstated.

We have enough perspective over five years to eschew generic "looks back" for a more nuanced analysis of how our country has fared over this time. It must be broken into phases: the invasion, the time surrounding 2004's battle for Fallujah, the grinding years of 2005 and 2006, the Abu Ghraib and Haditha investigations, and the controversial surge plan that's brought us to this point. At home the fascination with the invasion's pyrotechnics has given way to simply reading of the daily casualty figures ticking away over the news wires. There's also the trends in media coverage to consider, the heightened focus of home front veterans issues, and how artistic mediums have sought to portray the war and inform us.

Looking back on the fifth anniversary means not so much seeing what happened, but understanding how we got to where we are today, and how driven we are to look at Iraq not simply as a war, but as a series of distinct eras.

The Image of a Veteran

David Botti — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:18:35 GMT

The current series in the New York Times on veterans who've committed murder has spurred tremendous debate over the way vets are portrayed by the media. To understand origins of the prevailing portrayals of our current veterans, it's a good idea to take a step back and view the issue in a historical perspective.

Jerry Lembcke is a Vietnam veteran and professor of sociology at Holly Cross college in Worcester, Massachusetts. Lembcke's book "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam," looked in part at how the news media and pop-culture cultivated narrow portrayals of Vietnam vets. He has also written op-eds for the Boston Globe, Newsday, and the San Francisco Chronicle among others. In 1968 Lembcke was drafted into the Army, serving as chaplain's assistant before returning home and joining the anti-war movement.

I talked to Lembcke about how the Vietnam-era vets experience impacts that of those men and women coming home from war today -- and how he thinks the media is handling its coverage of veterans and issues associated with them.

SOLDIER'S HOME: You've written that a veteran's behavior can be influenced more from how past vets were portrayed in pop-culture, as opposed to personal experiences he/she might have had. How specifically does this happen?

LEMBCKE: The post-Vietnam popular culture representations of veterans was so powerful and so long lasting, and it so overwhelmed the war itself in popular culture, that as people began to come home during the Gulf War in the 1990’s, and present these same symptoms as Vietnam veterans coming back, I thought there’s a connection here. I think I used the phrase “learned experience,” and it occurred to me that this was a generation of veterans who’d grown up immersed in this popular culture of what it looks like to be a war veteran coming home.

This was very different than the culture Vietnam vets grew up in. Looking at representations of WWII veterans for example, which was not nearly as powerful in film for example. We got more war films about WWII, but not so many films about veterans coming home.

What is being portrayed in these kinds of movies that can influence veterans?

In the Vietnam war movies it was the dysfunctional, deranged, and even dangerous vet. I looked at about 100 films that portrayed Vietnam vets in them, and there wasn’t a single film that portrayed a healthy, functional veteran. So, what we see among other things is a lot of violence, the war brought home in a psychological sense, and even sometimes Hollywood portrayed guys coming home with their hand grenades and weapons and used those on the street.

Now we’re seeing one of the main representations of Iraq war veterans coming home is in the press with the violent crimes they’re committing. A lot of stories read to me like a lot of press reports and fictional representations of Vietnam vets that guys can’t leave the war behind them. They come home and they act out these war scenarios on the streets.

Is there a way the press can report on crimes committed by returning veterans without having such representations be the result?

Look at the current series the New York Times is running. The first in the series reported that one third of the violence is against spouses, girlfriends, and children. What this shows is a problem of masculinity and sense of worth as a man that perhaps the war has affected. These kinds of acts of violence against women and children are ways of acting out on that. Those are the kinds of stories that should be reported rather than this kind of pedestrian-type story of people coming home scared, and they’ve been trained up to act on their fears militarily

So it’s an issue of the press making the issue too black and white, and not attending to the gray areas?

The press is asking the wrong questions. They’re asking what is it about the military experience that causes these guys to act out like this, rather than asking what it is about the military culture (and even the culture of America) that requires men’s self esteem to somehow be related to their war experience.

You’ve said that it’s possible the behavior of Iraq veterans is influenced by past portrayals of Vietnam veterans. Is it possible reporters are also influenced by these pop culture images of Vietnam vets?

That exactly right. What we need to ask is, why did this story sound true to the reporter? What is the reporter herself bringing into this situation of reporting that leads her to think that this story is true when she hears it. These people live in the same culture you and I live in. They go to the same movies, they read the same books, they hear the same kinds of stories. Their sense of what is right is based on the same cultural references as the rest of us.

You’ve done some research on the origin of the term “PTSD.” There are some who say that the term is overused in talking about Iraq veterans. How was it used when it first came out?

I went back and looked at how PTSD came into being in the first place as a diagnostic category. I think it was attractive to the press at the time because it served a cultural and political function. It was inviting because it displaced from public view the fact that a lot of people were returning from Vietnam opposed to the war. The attractiveness of PTSD was that it re-spun the coming home story. It might have been attractive to journalists for reasons of basic liberal humanitarianism or even guilt that they didn’t go to the war. They were finding some way to speak sympathetically to the experience of people coming home from war. That may be what’s happening again. These stories [in the today’s press] are written very good heartedly. They’re not attempts to slander Iraq war veterans, as some critics seem to suggest they do. But, going back to Vietnam vets there was a stigma surrounding them. That’s the hidden danger that if indeed journalists are writing these stories because they are sympathetic, and they want to do something good for Iraq war veterans, in the long run they might be doing some damage.

What about how we use the term “PTSD” today?

PTSD had prominence in the press so quickly because that’s where the Vietnam-era story leaves off. That was sort of the easy tag line for them. Lots and lots of analogies. These stories are written with phrases such as: “it’s like with Vietnam-era veterans.” These stories are full of those kinds of tag lines. And they’re apparently written like that as a way of engaging the reader at the level that the writer assumes the reader is at. They assume correctly that the readers are coming out of a historical period in which they’ve been immersed in these images of PTSD and war veterans.

The American public remembers what happened to Vietnam vets when they came home much more then they remember the war itself. The war in Vietnam has really faded in American memory, but people have these very sharp images of the spitting incidents and PTSD. Because those are the images that have hung on in popular culture, and I think it’s almost certain that will happen with the war in Iraq--that the coming home narrative is going to displace the history of the war itself. And that could happen quite quickly.

In the News: Bill O'Reilly, Filmmaker Vets

David Botti — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:18:59 GMT

The veterans advocacy organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America is ramping up its criticism against Bill O'Reilly's recent comments on homeless vets. Users of IAVA's website can sign an online letter protesting O'Reilly's statement that:

“They may be out there, but there’s not many of them out there. Okay? … If you know where there's a veteran sleeping under a bridge, you call me immediately, and we will make sure that man does not do it.”

O'Reilly pulled presidential politics into the mix as well accusing John Edwards of using the homeless veterans issue for his own political gain. Today a transcript from one of O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memos" was published on the Fox News Website. It referenced an exchange between Edwards and David Letterman:

DAVID LETTERMAN: Tell me a little bit about your feud with Bill O'Reilly. Now there's a tough guy. He's been on the show a couple of times. And he's a tough guy. What's going on there? What's at the core of the feud?

JOHN EDWARDS: Well, the core of the feud is I've been talking about homeless veterans and the fact that we have a couple hundred thousand homeless veterans who have no place to sleep at night. They're either in shelters...

LETTERMAN: It's embarrassing, isn't it?

EDWARDS: It's incredibly embarrassing for America. Huge moral issue facing the country. And he kind of went on his show and said that I was exaggerating, making it up. And I think he got a lot of correspondence, a lot of homeless veterans have been calling in.

LETTERMAN: Well, you know what I've noticed about Bill O'Reilly — and he's a marvelous communicator. But he's not — he doesn't really care much about telling the truth.

O'Reilly then countered:

As Laura Ingraham might say, tedious. Edwards and Letterman could not care less about the truth unless it fits into their far-left vision of the world. Using homeless veterans to make a dishonest political point is wrong. That's one of the reasons Edwards is going nowhere in his campaign. The man simply cannot be trusted.

Recently the Associated Press reported on an interesting program giving wounded Marines and Navy Corpsmen job placement in the film industry. Working with the Wounded Marine Careers Foundation gives these vets hands on training in the various aspects of filmmaking--even the camera equipment can be modified to suite any injuries the vets may have. As the center's co-founder Kev Lombard tells the AP, the idea for the program came out of his own project:

Lombard came up with the idea for the foundation's Wounded Marine Training Center for Careers in Media program after being asked by a friend in the military nearly two years ago to document the stories of wounded veterans at military hospitals.

"It wasn't our story to tell. It was theirs," he said. "So I said how about we teach them to tell their own story."

Throughout the story we follow one young wounded Marine who's filming a mock scene of helmets atop inverted rifles set as battlefield memorials to those killed. If movies about Iraq will continue to be made in the future, his lens offers an idea of just how valuable these aspiring filmmakers may be:

Frey focuses on the helmets, which sit near a box of blank ammunition. For a moment he considers taking pictures. But then he decides against it, saying later that the scene didn't look real.

More Fallout from New York Times Murder Story

David Botti — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:21:22 GMT

On Monday we took a look at the fallout over a New York Times article looking at recent war veterans who have committed murder. Some critics said this article perpetuated the myth of "wacko" veterans returning from war. Additionally, a lack of comparison to murder rates among the civilian population was said to unfairly highlight the 121 veterans mentioned in the article. At the time of my last post most of the criticism seemed to be stemming from the online community. By today, however, we've seen this wave of thought reach the mainstream press.

In yesterday's New York Times the op-ed page printed letters from readers reacting to the story. Some excerpts:

CON:

Your article about veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who have committed or been charged with murder perpetuates the myth about crazed war veterans. You note that in researching “homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years” after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, there have been 349 cases. There are more than 1.4 million Americans on active duty. Philadelphia, a city with a similar population, alone had 392 murders in 2007. As a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, I find articles like yours do a disservice to America’s combat veterans by shaping a public perception that they are damaged people, prone to violence.

PRO:

It was simply not manly to seek psychiatric help during and after Vietnam. In my own case, I suffered for some 40 years. After all the nightmares, sleepwalking, waking myself up with my own screams and causing my near relatives anxiety and fear, a police officer introduced me to a talk group of Vietnam veterans at the local V.A. hospital...You are never the same when you return from combat. The American people must therefore be absolutely sure of the engaged war because of the terrible things war does to the psyches of those soldiers. It may be worth it, but only if the objectives of the war are worth it...Deep down, those images and sounds never go away. I am happy that today the military has recognized the humanity and manhood of those who seek help.

Citing the reporting done by "a platoon of Times reporters" the Wall Street Journal published this commentary in which it took issue with the Times' statistical approach:

The Times didn't try to establish a causal relationship between war service and homicide. It didn't even try to establish a correlation. The 7,000-word article contained no statistics on the size of the veteran population, or on the prevalence of homicide either in the general population or among young men, who are disproportionately represented among active-duty and recently discharged service members...the Times hasn't necessarily proved that the stereotype is true -- only that it is a stereotype.

The New York Post's Ralph Peters launched an intense attack against the Times and crunched his own set of murder statistics. He begins his editorial by accusing the Times of publishing this story because there are no new "atrocities" being committed in Iraq to write about. He later observes:

A very conservative estimate of how many different service members have passed through Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait since 2003 is 350,000 (and no, that's not double-counting those with repeated tours of duty). Now consider the Justice Department's numbers for murders committed by all Americans aged 18 to 34 - the key group for our men and women in uniform. To match the homicide rate of their peers, our troops would've had to come home and commit about 150 murders a year, for a total of 700 to 750 murders between 2003 and the end of 2007.

So, where are the defenders of the article? There doesn't seem to be many, or at least they're not making their presence known as much as the detractors. Over at the media blog FishbowlNY a poll of its readers found 63 percent thought the article was fair. Those writing of the article in the NYT's op-ed section who do not criticize the story seem to focus more on highlighting the affects of PTSD - rather than the specifics of the article itself. At least people are talking...no matter what side of the story you fall on.

Article on Veterans Committing Murder Stirs Debate

David Botti — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:18:15 GMT

Over the weekend the New York Times published an in-depth look at murders committed by current war veterans in the United States. In what the article called a "quiet phenomenon" many of these crimes were said to be in part the result of emotional trauma caused by the veterans' wartime experiences. Through it's investigation the Times reported 121 confirmed murders committed by veterans, while also saying there were probably more. There's no central database that keeps track of such figures.

Here are some of the major facts presented by the Times:

-Three quarters of the 121 cases studied by the Times involved the veterans committing murder while still in the military.
-More than half of the killings involved guns.
-About one third of the victims were "spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives."
-About one quarter of the victims were fellow service members.
-Murders committed by active-duty military personnel rose 89 percent from the pre-war period to present day (184 cases to 349) - three quarters of these cases involved Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
-13 of the 121 veterans committed suicide after committing the murders.
-Of the 121 veterans only one was a woman.

The article approaches its statistical findings as thus:

Clearly, committing homicide is an extreme manifestation of dysfunction for returning veterans, many of whom struggle in quieter ways, with crumbling marriages, mounting debt, deepening alcohol dependence or more-minor tangles with the law.

But these killings provide a kind of echo sounding for the profound depths to which some veterans have fallen, whether at the bottom of a downward spiral or in a sudden burst of violence.

In the short amount of time since the article was published there's been a strong backlash against the paper, citing worry that it perpetuated the stigma of veterans returning home as crazed and unstable. The first criticisms of the paper's investigation seemed to come from the article itself, as it quoted the Pentagon's reaction to the reporters' findings:

The Pentagon was given The Times’s roster of homicides. It declined to comment because, a spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, said, the Department of Defense could not duplicate the newspaper’s research. Further, Colonel Melnyk questioned the validity of comparing prewar and wartime numbers based on news media reports, saying that the current increase might be explained by “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.” He also questioned the value of “lumping together different crimes such as involuntary manslaughter with first-degree homicide.”

Many online criticisms of the article are pointing to this post by Phillip Carter at Intel Dump:

...I worry about the larger narrative of this story. It seems like we've been down this road before — casting veterans in the role of crazed, violent, disturbed young men who come home from war to become homeless or criminal (or both). America needs to wrap its arms around its sons and daughters who go to war, not alienate them and push them away with this kind of narrative. We sent these men and women to fight; we have a sacred trust to ensure they're taken care of when they come home. Irresponsible journalism like this impedes that effort by giving people the wrong impression about combat veterans.

In counterpoint to such criticisms Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org characterized the Times article as "stunning" and "well researched." Writing for the Huffington Post he used the article as a launching pad for highlighting the continued issue of PTSD among veterans. He expressed no concern over any negative characterizations of returning vets:

The trend of our newest veterans being involved in killings on the homefront can be largely attributed to four letters -- PTSD. Our failure to properly screen for and treat this mental injury is the source of so many problems our newest veterans face -- from drug and alcohol abuse, to homelessness, to joblessness, to spousal abuse, to suicide, and now, to murders.

At the military blog Blackfive one reader's email to the website described the experience of greeting vets returning from overseas shortly before the Times article was published:

Our men and women came home last night to a happy, welcoming crowd, who were more than pleased to see them and thank them for their service to our beloved country. And this morning, those same men and women will see a local paper with a prominent headline implying they are murdering criminals let loose in our society.

Is the New York Times guilty of cursory reporting, or does the article simply highlight a truth that's hard to swallow? It's clear many veterans (at least those with an online presence) are outraged, but for others it's yet another wake up call that the war is never simply left on the battlefield for returning vets. One thing is certain: the dialog over this article has already gone way past the actual focus of murder to now include the very way veterans are seen in our society.

A Soldier's Articles Refuted

David Botti — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:48:32 GMT

A five-month saga pitting the right-wing blogosphere against The New Republic ended yesterday when, in a nearly 7,000-word article, editor Franklin Foer said he could no longer stand by narratives his magazine had published written by a soldier serving in Iraq. The soldier, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, wrote what many had considered questionable pieces for the magazine regarding the behavior of his comrades during their Iraq tour. In one controversial entry, Beauchamp describes an exchange between troops as they notice a disfigured woman in the chow hall:

Man, I can't eat like this," he said.
"Like what?" I said. "Chow hall food getting to you?"
"No--with that f*cking freak behind us!" he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth.
"Are you kidding? I think she's *** hot!" I blurted out.
"What?" said my friend, half-smiling.
"Yeah man," I continued. "I love chicks that have been intimate--with IEDs. It really turns me on--melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses ... ."

Soon after "Shock Troops," the piece that contained this anecdote, was published in July, conservatives questioned the accuracy of the reporting--and lambasted The New Republic for the unsubstantiated "anti-war" message of its stories. Foer quotes Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol as saying:

But what is revealing about this mistake is that the editors must have wanted to suspend their disbelief in tales of gross misconduct by American troops. How else could they have published such a farrago of dubious tales? Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support."

While criticism for The New Republic has continued over the past five months, almost equally vehement is criticism of Foer's recent article. Bob Bateman of Media Matters highlights his belief Foer waited too long into his lengthy article to actually give his position on Beauchamp.

...they buried the lede. The last two paragraphs should have been the first...That is the bottom line, and TNR would have been better served to put it up front.

Slate provides a great roundup of conservative reactions to Foer's article. Among those are these words from Michelle Malkin:

"The maxi-mea culpa runs more than 10 pages and thousands and thousands of words (self-pitying, rationalizing, messenger-blaming), but this is the belated bottom line: The Beauchamp stories are bullcrap."

Then there's this snarky reaction by Gawker:

"For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated," Foer's piece begins. Poor things! But we suppose that's what happens when you take four-and-a-half months to check out those accusations.

What's further interesting about the timing of Foer's piece are the recent accusations of fabrication in several National Review stories concerning violence in Lebanon. The author, former Marine W. Thomas Smith, is basically coming off as the conservative version of Beauchamp. As the Huffington Post reports one journalist saying:

"In his [Smith's] wildly entertaining postings, he describes kidnap attempts, an armed incursion into Christian East Beirut by 5,000 armed Hezbollah fighters that was missed by every journalist in town, he also notes the presence of 200 armed Hezbollah fighters in downtown Beirut 'laying siege' to the prime ministers office...In a word, this is all insane."

Both the New York Times and Washington Post's articles reacting to The New Republic article take significant time to also explain the National Review controversy.

Best in War Reporting: Ernie Pyle on a Soldier's Death

David Botti — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:43:20 GMT

An occasional series highlighting some of the most thoughtful and informative combat reporting throughout America's history at war.

Today's Best in War Reporting comes from the legendary combat correspondent Ernie Pyle at the Italian front in WWII. With a simplicity of words and observations, Pyle manages to knock you over as he writes of the moments surrounding a young company commander's death. In his words you can almost hear his own exhaustion as he holds back tears. It begins:

AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, January 10, 1944 - In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas...I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow's body down. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley below. Soldiers made shadows in the moonlight as they walked. Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.

The narrative continues as Pyle evokes an almost bizarre scene as Capt. Waskow's body is removed from the mule and placed with the other bodies of U.S. soldiers. The empathy with which Pyle treats this moment is a grim foreshadowing of his own future in the war. Like Capt. Waskow, Pyle was loved universally by the troops; and like Capt. Waskow, Pyle would not make it home from the war alive. He was killed the following April by sniper fire on one of the Japanese islands.

As Capt. Waskow's men begin to pay their last respects, Pyle manages to convey how even their short remarks are far more emotional than they might seem on the surface.

One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, "God damn it." That's all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said, "God damn it to hell anyway." He looked down for a few last moments, and then he turned and left.
Another man came; I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain's face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: "I'm sorry, old man."
Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said:
"I sure am sorry, sir."

But, of course, the soldiers (and Pyle) must get ready to continue fighting the next day.

After that the rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the five dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.

Witnessing the moments he described Pyle showed that at a moment when his own emotions may have dominated his thoughts, his ability to step back, observe, and convey never left his writing.

The "Marlboro Marine" Today

David Botti — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:05:51 GMT

Though we talk a lot about the term "PTSD," rarely is it personified in the way it is in this incredible series of audio slide shows in the Los Angeles Times focusing on Marine James Blaker Miller. Miller's face became an iconic image of the Iraq war when he was photographed during the battle of Fallujah, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Since then, he's struggled deeply with what he experienced during that time, contemplating suicide and going through a divorce.

In a highly personal and moving article the photographer, Luis Sinco, recently wrote of his own efforts to help Miller. I urge you to take the time to watch the slide shows and read Sinco's words.

Best in War Reporting: Baghdad at the Beginning

David Botti — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:11:44 GMT

From time-to-time I will be highlighting some great instances of war reportage throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. First up, an article by John F. Burns, long-time Baghdad bureau chief of the New York Times. It's more than four-and-a-half years old.

As I read it I think of the job Burns was tasked with when writing the article: sum up the mood, atmosphere, and minutia throughout Baghdad as "shock and awe" hits the city--as the entire country is thrust almost overnight into war. His verbs are fierce, his sentences long, but packed with enough description to almost make you think you're reading a novel. He begins:

"The American war on Saddam Hussein exploded tonight in a ferocious display of precision bombing and cruise missile strikes that blasted the heart of the Iraqi ruler's power with a spectacular opening bulls-eye on his most forbidding palace and continued with at least 100 more devastating volleys in the first two hours."

From the missile-streaked sky, Burns shoots into the city's empty streets.

"Amid the staccato of the bomb blasts and the metallic whoosh of the cruise missiles as they roared low across the city before striking their targets with a deafening roar, only one ambulance siren could be heard, and then only briefly."

"On the deserted roads, no fire engines could be seen. Any survivors in the buildings appeared to have been left to their fates."

It's important to revisit these moments from time-to-time. It's important remember what 2003 felt like to understand the war's evolution to 2007. Burns's article stands out because it doesn't capture just a moment in time, but a moment in which history is about to change forever. The skies are on fire, and the slow rumble of American tanks and convoys is beginning its northbound race to the waiting capital.

The article ends:

"At 9 p.m. precisely, with the city's streets almost deserted and an ominous silence reaching to the horizon, the attack began. In an instant, the Republican Palace was a sea of fire and rising pillars of smoke lit with a spangling of brightly burning debris."

"Viewed from across the river, successive strikes turned the hundreds of acres of palace grounds and their carefully manicured palm trees into a stadium of light, as though war had finally begun to reveal some of the secrets of one of the most forbidden places in Iraq."

And so the war began.