Comments on: Feeling Broken, But Still On the Line

By: No End But Victory :: “Picture of the (Memorial) Day: “Strength and Compassion” or “Broken Victim”?” by AcademicElephant

Sat, 27 May 2006 02:48:30 +0000

[…] This week, the photo turned up again, but in a very different context. A Hartford Courant article has been circulating that suggests the Department of Defense is sending soldiers who suffer from serious mental illness into combat, resulting in, among other things, increased suicides. The article has become welcome evidence for the group that believes the army is, in John Murtha’s word, “broken.” The aggressive DoD program to combat such mental illness detailed here (which includes the statistic that suicide rates in the military are about half that of the general population) has gone unheeded. In her post “Feeling broken but still on the line,” Firedoglake’s Christy Hardin Smith made the story into a metaphor for the larger incompetence of the Bush administration: I have been told by more than one retired military higher-up that they are afraid — and that friends who are current military are afraid — that our nation’s Army, Marines and national guard [sic] and reserves [sic] will be broken entirely by the piss poor planning coming out of Donald Rumsfeld’s pentagon [sic] and George Bush and Dick Cheney’s White House. […]

By: Irene

Irene — Tue, 23 May 2006 22:43:08 +0000

That photograph was shot by Michael Yon. I noticed you are not properly crediting him for it. You need to correct that mistake.

By: OCSteve

OCSteve — Tue, 23 May 2006 18:49:05 +0000

I am shocked that only one person here (including the author of the post) recognized that picture. It is inconceivable to me. That wonderful painful picture has been posted all over the right for a year.

Michael Yon has done fantastic work. If you don’t know him or that picture then that tells me that all you know about these issues comes from the MSM or stateside pundits. If you have not been following the blogger/reporters who raised the money themselves, with the help of their readers, to embed or even travel on their own to bring front-line reporting back to the blogosphere then you do not know what is going on in Iraq. MSM reporters rarely leave the Green Zone – surely you know they are phoning it in.

Is it because the right mostly promotes and links these folks? You let ideological blinders keep you from reading such magnificent front-line reporting?

Really, take some time to read all of their dispatches if you want more perspective on what is going over there. They tell the bad with the good - it is not right-wing noise. Many fantastic photographs as well. These bloggers have literally put their lives on the line to bring us these stories and pictures.

Michael Yon

Bill Roggio

Michael Totten who is all over the ME.

By: brendan

brendan — Tue, 23 May 2006 16:03:01 +0000

“painful visual”?

More of them please. It helps remind us that we’re paying for the carnage every day.

By: Drew Edmondson

Drew Edmondson — Tue, 23 May 2006 13:14:57 +0000

When On 11/18 the No Blood for 12 were arrested for shutting down a recruitment center in Lakewood Colorado we wore 8×10’s of Dead and maimed Iraqi children. When we go to court on 6/5 we will wear the same. For a 5 min. QuickTime educational edited film on civil resistence download at this kind place http://www.s90370584.onlinehom.....ilComp.mov

By: Fred Barton

Fred Barton — Tue, 23 May 2006 13:06:41 +0000

That photograph…
I’m going to send it to my representatives in Congress with the caption “You let this happen.” I’d encourage everyone else to do the same. I’ll send it to some MSM idiots as well.

By: mui

mui — Tue, 23 May 2006 12:28:22 +0000

I glanced at this newspaper headline in the gas station a while back and felt a little woozy. For me I think it’s easier to read about the tap scandals and look at Hayden’s face. Maybe that’s because a friend of mine died from an injury he got in the army. I think the NYT was carrying a story about the abuse of physically rehabilitating recruits at almost the same time. It’s unbearable.

By: Sally

Sally — Tue, 23 May 2006 12:18:36 +0000

Griffon (88), thank you for stating, “…war is not a natural inclination in mankind and in men in particular. PTSD says war is totally unnatural.” Society severely punishes convicted killers on one hand because it’s wrong to kill and then goes against this truism by sending our military to kill. Not many question the latter practice because war is such a given throughout history. During my long life, World War II was the only war that had merit but even then a different mind-set might have prevented it. We need to actively war against war and use our resources to build rather than to destroy.

By: Terry Karney

Terry Karney — Tue, 23 May 2006 12:09:46 +0000

For those who don’t know how to read the patches, the guy in the picture is probably on his second tour. The flag patch on his right sleeve seems a little low, which implies; to me at least, that he has a combat patch, which get for serving at least thirty days in a combat zone.

By: Susan Kitchens

Susan Kitchens — Tue, 23 May 2006 06:46:23 +0000

That picture was taken by Michael Yon, a blogger, or rather a writer (& former soldier) who embedded himself with the military in Iraq and wrote his dispatches and posted his pictures from his blog, http://michaelyon-online.com/

The story behind his photo is here:
http://www.michaelyon-online.c.....e-girl.htm