Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Screw you USA TODAY

oh yeah, this Army Wife is pissed and highly resentful. Did you know that all soldiers are something to fear, they are all highly trained in tactical ops and "ticking bombs"- they're all psychos who will eventually explode. Wait- you didn't know? Well now you do.

We need to help train our police forces to deal with these "ticking bombs"; according to the USA Today article entitled "Police get help with vets who are ticking bombs".

On the other hand I adore Mr. Alex Horton. He responds to the USA Today article here, "Perpetuating the Erroneous “Ticking Bomb” View of Veterans":
"The ticking bomb metaphor, as inflammatory and unacceptable as it was, is a perfect term for this perception of an “increasing number of mentally ill suspects.” The melodramatic language conveys a surprising and violent event. A bomb is bad enough, but a ticking bomb? You never know when a ticking bomb will go off; that’s what’s so heinous, so destructive about it. You may not even now there’s a bomb at all. The only thing you do know is that it will explode at some point. The reader of this story, then—given a story so devoid of context and facts and appropriate measurements and statistics—is left to conclude all Veterans are walking powder kegs. They have always ticked, and it’s only a matter of time before an explosion."
Again I say... SCREW YOU USA TODAY. First, not all soldiers are receive the same amount of training. Not all are high speed, Jason Bourne-esque killing machines. Personally I know all kinds of soldiers, "high speed" ones, Airborne, Rangers, Special Forces, Engineers, Air Assault, Mechanics, Scouts, Infantrymen, various Admins, enlisted and officers and I can't say as I know any ticking bombs; not a single one is a one-track killing machine with no empathy for individuals or lacking respect for human life. You're simple-minded view is insulting.

Evidently I should fear the "ticking bomb" in bed next to me. Do you?

4 comments:

Erin said...

You gotta watch out for DF since he's a high speed killing machine. LOL. But in all seriousness, I get that some soldiers come back with mental issues and sadly those are the ones that make the news. So the perception is that they are one second away from going off. However, the vast majority of them, even if they have lasting psychological effects, are pretty normal.

ROXY said...

I don't fear my husband but I do know that my soldier and probably all soldiers go thru a lot of things we wives may never understand especially after deployments.

Unknown said...

Absolutely ridiculous!!!

Lauren said...

New follower! Cute blog! :)

xo