BS: POW RESCUED

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: TIA
Date: 15 May 03 - 05:42 PM

There are lots of other examples. Can they all be entirely untrue? Not challenging, just questioning.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 May 03 - 05:44 PM

I don't have a lot of hope for "truth" in the script that goes with the TV movie, or movies, that I'm sure we'll be offered in the fall. I have even less hope for the mental health of Jessica Lynch who will have no privacy to recover from what must have been a desparate war experience.

I'm sure our military was delighted with the original "story line", even if they didn't compose it. What a story, ready made for Reader's Digest. The real story, I'm convinced, will eventually come out and boil down to a very minor skirmish in a much larger military adventure.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 May 03 - 05:49 PM

Anyone know the usual hospital stay for broken legs and one arm? Honestly just wondering. If I were her I'd be so sick of the hospital AND want to go home.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 15 May 03 - 06:10 PM

Everybody seems to accept it as normal that a teenager who wants to become a teacher has to join an organisation which makes her a trained killer in order to pay for her teacher training.

Is it my values that are warped, or is that a slightly sick system?

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 May 03 - 07:17 PM

She was a clerk in a vehicle maintenance unit.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:01 PM

I'll watch the BBC documentary with interest. I wouldn't put dressing up a documentary to make a stronger case for thier own story beyond them but I do think they are fairer than most of the media.

Spin Jeri, yes, I think there has been spin from all sides and one of the most sickening things of this Iraq business to me is that I have no faith in our own side (ie US and UK governments) for honesty even though I see Saddam and his supporters as evil shits (to put it mildly)...

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Forum Lurker
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:22 PM

artbrooks-She might not have been combat infantry, but it's still embarassing that she had to take one form of service for the country, and a particularly low status form thereof, to be able to afford to give a second, more important, and often even lower status form of service. We should be PAYING people who want to be teachers, not making them risk their lives for the privilege.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Jeri
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:46 PM

Jon, I don't trust many people who are in front of TV cameras to tell the truth. As I get older, I get more and more fed up with deceptive tactics that seem transparent. I fondly remember remember reporters who at leased seemed to be trying to be imparial. I also get fed up with the fact so many buy one point of view lock, stock & barrel, and will believe anything which supports it.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Doug_Remley
Date: 15 May 03 - 11:50 PM

Maintenance clerk or not she had basic training. Is the "spirit of the bayonet still 'kill!kill!kill!?'" or is that politically incorrect in today's coed Army? Seems the policy is still "rifle (person) first, something else second". Her detachment might have been hit by friendly fire as a significant percentage of casualties were. The BBC filed and PRINTED a report concerning the hospital staff's accounts and mock, filmed engagement. I doubt they would do that without considering both legal and international ramifications.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 May 03 - 08:49 AM

The Iraqi hospital's side of the story is hardly new. It was reported by the Washington Post about a month ago, and here is a copy of that story from the Seattle Times. I really don't know how much bayonet training they get in Basic these days, but I guess I could ask my daughter. I think I had about 2 hours worth in 1967. That's really not the point.

The whole rescue thing, whether you choose to put quotes around "rescue" or not, was a two-day sensation and is now properly over. Her father has made it clear that the family dosn't want to discuss it and the military has made it clear that they don't either, both on its own behalf and speaking for her as a soldier. IMHO, the media should go looking for its sensations and soundbites elsewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Kim C
Date: 16 May 03 - 10:02 AM

Like it or not, the US military offers educational opportunities that some people cannot afford by any other means. That some people who really want to go to collage are unable to afford a higher education in the US, is certainly not the military's fault. There are only so may scholarships to go around.

I have a friend who is in the Army, and is getting a business degree, while he works full-time training guard and reserve troops. Lucky for him he's single because otherwise, he doesn't have much of a life. Work. School. Work. School. And he is hardly a deranged "kill! kill! kill!" type.

Yes, we should be paying people who want to be teachers. Remember, though, it's college athletic coaches who make the big bucks. But that's another story for another thread.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 May 03 - 10:41 AM

Sorry, art, I have to disagree. The media is just fine when the gov./mil. want to feed it their brand of news, but when they try to get to the *real* story, they are supposed to forget it and go look for more sensationalist stuff to cover? What, the next sound byte/reality shots from the military or next shrub-landing?

I understand and respect the family's request for privacy, but the military's stance and her still being in the hospital raise a few questions, in my mind, and I am glad the media has reported the other accounts. I hope someday we know the truth of it all.

Just my opinion, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Forum Lurker
Date: 16 May 03 - 11:04 AM

Kim C.-It's possible that if we didn't spend so godawfully much on our military, we'd be able to afford scholarships for teachers.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Kim C
Date: 16 May 03 - 11:14 AM

Maybe so, FL, but don't most scholarships come from private endowments anyway? Mine did.

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: The O'Meara
Date: 16 May 03 - 12:44 PM

There's nothing new about the military or the government using the media for their own purposes if they can, for example the re-staging of the flag raising on Iwo Jima for the photographers, or John Kerry's own comment on his award of the Medal of Honor "Nixon needed a hero..." (In Viet Nam us army grunts had a joke to the effect that a Marine Corps " re-enforced rifle platoon" was the same as a regular one except it had two extra photographers and a sound man.) I really don't know if if trying to "use" the media is a good thing or a bad thing. It seems to have helped the war effort during WWII.

And it isn't all that hard to do. The media thrives on sensationalism, and is more than happy to exaggerate the hell out of a story in order to sell more newspapers or get more air time (The Blizzard of the Century with theme music) or to be the first with the inside story, true or not.

The fact that story of "The Rescue of Private Lynch" has been wildly exaggerated by the media and helped along by the military shouldn't come as a big surprise. But I really despise the fact that such things happen and feel very sorry for Ms Lynch who like it or not is caught in the middle.

O'Meara

Subject: RE: BS: POW RESCUED
From: Grab
Date: 16 May 03 - 12:59 PM

Art, the purpose of the media is not to report "two day sensations", it's to report what's actually happening. Whether it happens in a media market dominated by a few major players is a matter for discussion, but that is the basic purpose of having a free media.

I don't have a problem with her wanting to stay out of it - it wasn't her (or her family) that created this. But if the military go to the trouble of creating a "media event" one day, you can't call foul when the same media report later that actually it was all a snow job.

Thanks for the link to that news article. As you say, it seems it's not a new story; however this is the first that most of us have heard of it.

Graham.