How 'bout Them Soldiers

Just days ago, we were wondering in the office why we find no reporting on
American war heroes in the American press. Now comes John Hillen, a former
Army officer who was decorated for his combat role in the Gulf War, with an
explanation. Rather than our fighting forces, Mr. Hillen writes in The Wall
Street Journal, we will recall images of Geraldo Rivera, Christiane Amanapour
and Ashleigh Banfield: "Relentlessly narcissistic and buoyed by cloying
network anchors at home, reporters such as these have used dramatic license
to heighten the sense of personal danger to themselves . . . As a consequence
we pass our affections on to the millionaire celebrity reporters rather than
to the $35,000-a-year Delta Force sergeant crawling around Tora Bora."
Why? "It is not the media's fault. It is the military's. Since Vietnam,
where the military's adversarial relationship with the press was cemented,
the Pentagon has had a mistrustful and ham-handed way of handling the press
and any attention that it cannot control."

We are a long while removed now from Vietnam. America has been wounded in a way it never had before and wants to celebrate the victory over those who
inflicted the damage. Mr. Hillen is right. Our applause should be directed
to the warriors. Geraldo's self-approval should prove sufficient to him.

Ed Fowler

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(c) 2001 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 1 no. 16
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