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Home » Categories » News » Other News » War Heroes- Victims of a Parasitic Relationship » Printer Friendly
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Since the Army was introduced to its war time partner, the media, it has attempted to use its resources to advance its causes. Much like any politician, celebrity, or corporation the media is viewed as a way to get the message out. Most everyone is familiar with the movie Flags of Our Fathers in which several soldiers that raised the flag at Iwo Jima during a major turning point in World War II were put on tour as heroes to sell war bonds to finance an increasingly unpopular war. We find that these heroes were just men, but in the eyes of many they will remain heroes forever.
Like most Americans I sat on the edge of my comfortable chair in front of my television awaiting word of the rescue of Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital used to keep her captive. I remember seeing her smile when she was shuttled to transportation aboard an army stretcher. I remember the tearful interviews months later as she recalled the loss of friends in her unit.
Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan . The story of how he made it too Afghanistan was even more amazing than his death as an Army Ranger. He had the looks and physique of a Marvel Comics super hero and yet we know that is just fantasy when the human body and bullets are involved.
The Department of the Army or at least those in command of a particular event or story chooses at times to allow the positive to be over inflated to hopefully receive a brief light of support from the majority of Americans. No matter how you package a war, war is ugly, war is disgusting, war is unpopular, and war is death. The Army has a tougher time of advertising its purpose than cigarette companies.
We live in a time when sensationalism, whether positive or negative, draws us into its labyrinth of truth and non-truth. At times we are able to come to our own conclusions and opinions about the person or persons involved. We, as Americans, look to heroes for inspiration. We build them up to be larger than life only to have them torn down by those searching for “real" truth. Ultimately, the media and those charged with finding the deep dark truth strip away the cape, the stylish mask, colorful spandex hero suit, deflate the moral structure, and cast the light of doubt toward the hero or the events surrounding the heroism that for a moment captured our attention and our emotions. Sometimes the media will take off with a story without really finding the truth first. This makes for a more exaggerated regurgitation of what they thought was fact but now has been put under a high intensity halogen light to show all the blemishes, failings, cover-ups and lies. The sins involve those that people admit to and those they are accused of by omitting the facts. In our society, not telling the complete unedited and unrestricted truth is a lie. The Army may be guilty of such sins of omission in its telling of the tales of Tillman and Lynch. The media is always prepared to point at others when it fails to get its facts straight, after all, it gets to report the positive and negative.
Maybe when we are able to point at the failings of others it makes them a little more real and a little more like each of us. Those in leadership working within the Army are in a difficult position. Many are heroes of wars and military service past, attempting to make decisions in this war. Any ray of hope and sunshine that they can see through the darkness of war and death is welcomed and encouraged. The media is the best friend of the Army during the time of encouragement and strength, and it is the shark attacking the weak when it senses a hint of blood in the water. The Army and its relationship with the media will always be parasitic. Each takes its place as host in a liaison that will rarely be simultaneously beneficial.
The affiliation between the Army and the media really has no chance of a mutual respect and friendly compromise. One will always use the other for its own selfish purposes. When the media says that the Iraq war is “not a popular war" I wonder what their definition of a “popular war" would be. It is more of an oxymoron much liked “unbiased reporting".
Those that are working today in this “unpopular" war, those that have been there to fight, those that are preparing to go to represent us, and the five men that died today May 12, 2007 in Iraq are all heroes. Despite the story of Jessica Lynch’s overly embellished capture and rescue, and Pat Tillman’s tragic death by a friendly fire mistake, they are still heroes and more than likely would have still captured the hearts of America without the help of the information manipulators within the media and the Army. Many more stories will fill the information overload that we have built around the events of this war.
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