Some things never change.

I was reading through a few of my favorite military blogs at Milblogging.com yesterday. I observed that we may have the modern, well-equipped Army of today, but since the time of the revolutionary soldier some things have stayed the same. The troops are still not informed of anything going on in their areas of operation.

One GI in Baghdad wrote he was on the phone with his Mother and during the conversation she brought up the Mosque being blow up and the possibility of a civil war brewing in Iraq. To which he was totally stunned. He had no knowledge of the Mosque blowing up and had read nothing in the Stars and Stripes about a civil war. I was amused by his comments, as it was the same during my time of enlistment. The Stars and Stripes told wonderful stories of bravery, self-sacrifice and heroism, but nothing of a political nature. We used to get a kick out of the spin they put on things and reached the point we would read it for the crosswords and any news from home we could find.

They always had human-interest stories geared towards the in country soldier. They loved to tell tales of the help we did to the civilians and any news of the schools, churches or hospitals we would build for them. Of course they always neglected to report how long it would take the NVA to blow them up after we left that area, fact was, we did it and we were good guys. It was stories designed to make us feel good, not remind us we were at war.

One thing that has always bothered me is the slant they place on Viet Nam movies today, drugs, corruption, not caring, playing Russian roulette for the gambling habits of the enemy. Never happened, nope. I have read the Russian roulette sequence in “The Deer Hunter” was to show the insanity of war and nothing more. Of course that was written after letters poured into the director’s office from vets telling him otherwise. I never knew of anyone smoking weed before, during or after a battle or smoking weed at all. I am sure that years from now today’s vets will see their history portrayed in the same light. I hope not, I hope that their stories are told the right way. We will have to wait and see.