tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8077567.post109729562652906065..comments2023-10-25T02:02:47.227-07:00Comments on UGN: The Media Always Takes Sides UGNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08018646255201516826noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8077567.post-1097642218829836482004-10-12T21:36:00.000-07:002004-10-12T21:36:00.000-07:00Wow. Very sorry that you lost your father sooner t...Wow. Very sorry that you lost your father sooner than one would expect. I can't imagine the feelings that I will be flooded with when my father is no longer around. Sounds like yours left quite a legacy in many different ways.UGNhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08018646255201516826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8077567.post-1097506029327791442004-10-11T07:47:00.000-07:002004-10-11T07:47:00.000-07:00He died in 2000, just short of his 57th birthday. ...He died in 2000, just short of his 57th birthday. After leaving the full time Army, he became a prison guard and later acting warden for well over 10 years. He remained active in the National Guard and did some "hush hush" work for the DEA from time to time. After successfully suing the state for workman's comp for metal stress, after the prison tripled the inmates and not the guards, he became something of a black sheep. He was denied disability when he got very sick with his cancer and fought uphill for years to maintain his healthcare, which he eventually lost.<br />He got his disability a week before he died.<br />The Army gave him a free funeral.<br />No official record exists of his time in Nam because he was an "advisor".<br />I do thank him for his service, as a soldier and for his time in law enforcement. <br /><br />I learned from that experience that if you are a black man, a loud mouth, or a good person trying to right wrongs from within, you are dispossable.<br />If you are all three, you are forgotten before you die.Mr. Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09079912102730319332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8077567.post-1097363777054529712004-10-09T16:16:00.000-07:002004-10-09T16:16:00.000-07:00Thanks for the info, I wasn't sure when the media ...Thanks for the info, I wasn't sure when the media got really involved in the Vietnam war since I was busy playing with trucks in the dirt.<br /><br />Also, you are right about atrocities. If you are looking for horrible things during wartime you are going to find it every time. This is not a particularly American problem, it is a human being problem. As long as there have been wars, there have been atrocities.<br /><br />There will always be soldiers who succumb to their baser instincts while in middle of stresses I can't even imagine. There is never an excuse to act unhonorably, but human nature is what it is.<br /><br />And of course, it is a good thing when the misdeeds of those unable to cope come to light because it is easy to do evil under the cover of darkness and anonymity. The big problem I have with the U.S. press is that it takes the discovery of such evil and uses it to smear an entire country and in this case, an entire war effort. <br /><br />I find it hard to believe that it was U.S. policy to perform atrocities in Vietnam. But once some stuff got out, the media did not hesitate to make the exception the norm and use a glass half-empty approach to ultimately turn public opinion against our soldiers and our government. <br /><br />I am not saying that the media should cover up anything. It is good that they reported the Abu Graib (sp?) prison abuses because it was wrong and it is not what America does. What was wrong is that they use things like that, blow them out of proportion (let's see, beheadings vs. dog leashes, hmm, I don't know) in an effort to undermine our country. <br /><br />Our media seems to delight in trying to find bad things to say about us, as if they weren't part of "us." Ours is a culture where Judeo-Christian ethics still rule in the overall way we choose to conduct ourselves. The media loves to find the exceptions to that and gloat about it to the benefit of our enemies who have decidedly inferior ideas of how to treat people.<br /><br />They magnify our exceptions and downplay the reality of our enemies human rights shortcomings. My question is why they want to do that when the result in Vietnam was incredible suffering for millions after the dominos fell just as we knew they would. <br /><br />Oh, by the way, if your father is still with us, thank him for his service to our country.UGNhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08018646255201516826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8077567.post-1097332212692590622004-10-09T07:30:00.000-07:002004-10-09T07:30:00.000-07:00I hope you don't think I'm picking on you, but. . ...I hope you don't think I'm picking on you, but. . .<br />My dad was in the 'Nam from 1960-1961. Army Special Forces. No rank insignia. Trained by the CIA to kill with his bare hands. There was NO MEDIA for the first half of that 10+ year war. NONE. What was there showed you only what was pleasent to the eyes. Even when things starting getting really bad, something Iraq has done in considerably less time, it still took months for those edited images to reach America sometimes.<br />I know from being family to it that there were acts of pure terrorism committed by Americans in that war and to think that we're better now is unwise.<br />The media DID have a hand in they way America's saw that war, but only after they got there. . .many years after the troops did.Mr. Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09079912102730319332noreply@blogger.com