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PrintApril 8, 2007
Response to "America's Broken-Down Media"
I wanted to forward my thoughts to Ray Robinson regarding his article "America's Broken-Down Media"
I am honorably discharged, Army veteran. I served with the 3rd ID as an 11X Infantryman during two combat tours in Iraq including the invasion. The dishonesty that the left writes with really bothers me and serves to undermine everybody that has ever served in combat.
I hope the writer of the original Time article understands that he is denigrating and discounting the leadership provided by the NCO's and Officers that a privileged to lead young soldiers into combat. I survived combat and earned my Sgt's stripes by following the example of my leaders. Sometimes things happen that are beyond the control of anybody in the chain of command. In the case of PVT Zeimer the only person the left can blame is the President because "if he wasn't there to begin with this wouldn't have happened".
I hope the writer of the original Time article understands that he is denigrating and discounting the leadership provided by the NCO's and Officers that a privileged to lead young soldiers into combat. I survived combat and earned my Sgt's stripes by following the example of my leaders. Sometimes things happen that are beyond the control of anybody in the chain of command. In the case of PVT Zeimer the only person the left can blame is the President because "if he wasn't there to begin with this wouldn't have happened".
Thanks for having folks like Mr. Robinson on point. It's amazing what one little "blogger" can do to make an establishment of the American media bedrock such as Time look like a clownish rag straight of the DNC presses.
Brian Marshall
PS: Here's snippet of a letter that I wrote to my father (a retired history and political science teacher of 32 years)regarding this.
Thought you might be interested in this perspective. There's a story from Time magazine floating around that describes a soldier that was killed in Iraq after only a few days in the country and they point to is lack of training as a cause for his death. Aside from being absurd the story is also very misleading.
People who don't know anything about the military and military job specialty training will be led to believe that this kid was put through some grinder and sent to the front lines. I had even less training than this soldier when I went over for the first time. The fact is that there wouldn't be any privates in the military if every deploying soldier was required to through all of the training offered by the Army. By the time they go done with the training cycle they'd all be Specialist/E4's!
There's a reason why the Army has experienced NCO's. Leadership!! As long as the soldier knows how to use his equipment and follow orders he'll be fine with good leadership. From the sound of this story it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot that could have been done to prevent this. Even if a seasoned Special Forces soldier had been there the same bombs would have killed him. I witnessed what happened to a SF team when they rolled over a bomb on the same route I was on earlier that morning! My Company 1st Sgt. was killed in Iraq and he had 22 years in the Army! Training is critical to success but it can only go so far. wish every guy going over could get a year and a half of combat oriented training but that's not possible. Check out the source story and a good followup that I found today.
People who don't know anything about the military and military job specialty training will be led to believe that this kid was put through some grinder and sent to the front lines. I had even less training than this soldier when I went over for the first time. The fact is that there wouldn't be any privates in the military if every deploying soldier was required to through all of the training offered by the Army. By the time they go done with the training cycle they'd all be Specialist/E4's!
There's a reason why the Army has experienced NCO's. Leadership!! As long as the soldier knows how to use his equipment and follow orders he'll be fine with good leadership. From the sound of this story it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot that could have been done to prevent this. Even if a seasoned Special Forces soldier had been there the same bombs would have killed him. I witnessed what happened to a SF team when they rolled over a bomb on the same route I was on earlier that morning! My Company 1st Sgt. was killed in Iraq and he had 22 years in the Army! Training is critical to success but it can only go so far. wish every guy going over could get a year and a half of combat oriented training but that's not possible. Check out the source story and a good followup that I found today.
