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(InspiredBytheCKdoTheBreakDownBoogie!)
I created this thread so that I can can post
stuff that I want to write about that are not
questions to MM and so he need not look
at them (save him a little time)!
here's an eMail I got recently (I added a bunch of my own [editorial] additional text....
[No Title. Author: some old-school Middle America Schmuck who doesn't have a post-highschool education (my guess only)]
Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than idiot Reservists and
> naked Iraqis.
>
> Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored the uniform he wears.
> Meet Brian Chontosh. Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991.
Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband and
about-to-be father. First lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. And a genuine hero.
> The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday. At 29 Palms in California
> Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy Cross, the second highest
award for combat bravery the United States can bestow. That's a big deal. But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you read in Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing. Instead, it was more blather about some mental defective MPs who acted like animals. The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the world is receiving virtually no true information [really?] about what its warriors are doing.
[Do we need to know what they normally do? If you know or knew anyone in the military, they can tell you. I'm an ex-Marine and I can tell you that they sit around a lot, until they get another task they are ordered to fulfill, and execute 'til completed.]
Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And we're almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the Iraqi prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us. We get
> a non-stop feed of gloom and doom. But we don't hear about the heroes. The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue. [The world that your grandparents struggled in is quite different than what we have today, so you ought not always agree with their point-of-view. Perhaps you ought to just think about things more.]
The ones we completely ignore. [Are we really ignoring them? Who are they again? Sorry, there are millions of people in the world. Sorry if I don't know all of them.] Like Brian Chontosh.
> It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee. When all hell broke loose. Ambush city. The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. [Really? Sounds like a significant part of that 700+ killed; all in one battle!] Mortars, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in charge. It s
do or die and it was up to him. [All on his shoulders, eh? Wow. What a burden!] So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire. [Not descriptive enough. Not sure what's going on here. Obviously, this guy wasn't there.] It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish. And
Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. [Surprising! Considering he was under enemy fire!] He told his driver to floor the
humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them. [Shame that the gunner had to wait for the order!] Within moments
there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines. [They dig trenches over there? Is he mixing up Operation Iraqui freedom with WWII Normandy?] Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride. And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers. And he
killed them all. [I didn't know the "insurgents" had that much artillery and munitions!] He fought with the M16 until it was out of ammo. Then he
fought with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead man's AK47 [famous Commie weapon] and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. At one point
he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion. [Wow incredible trench warfare going on in the same single trench!] When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared
200yards of entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had
killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more. But that's
probably not how he would tell it. He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on. [The Hummer survived? Wow! Oh by the way, it's "OO-RAH!"]
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in
the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval
Service."
>
That's what the citation says. And that's what nobody will hear.
That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts of American ifficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you wonder if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress ? to report or to deride.
> To tell the truth, or to feed us lies. [Please be more specific when you make this kind of accusation.]
I guess it doesn't matter.
> We're going to turn out all right
THE END
I dunno. I kind of don't buy the story. Maybe he should have got someone who can write well to type up his message.
The more I learn, the more I dislike the word "hero." The way it's used most frequently makes it sound inherently disingenuous. I'm more inclined to use the word hero if someone rescues a drowning child.
To call someone a "hero" who kills a bunch of Iraquis in a preemptive invasion in the service of corrupt USA interests, is more like a "Pawn of the Neo-cons" to me.
If you want to know a definition of "hero" that makes sense to me, read
comics. Specifically read my favorite: "Martial Law: Fear and Loathing" by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill...
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/marshlaw.htm
I created this thread so that I can can post
stuff that I want to write about that are not
questions to MM and so he need not look
at them (save him a little time)!
here's an eMail I got recently (I added a bunch of my own [editorial] additional text....
[No Title. Author: some old-school Middle America Schmuck who doesn't have a post-highschool education (my guess only)]
Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than idiot Reservists and
> naked Iraqis.
>
> Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored the uniform he wears.
> Meet Brian Chontosh. Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991.
Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband and
about-to-be father. First lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. And a genuine hero.
> The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday. At 29 Palms in California
> Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy Cross, the second highest
award for combat bravery the United States can bestow. That's a big deal. But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you read in Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing. Instead, it was more blather about some mental defective MPs who acted like animals. The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the world is receiving virtually no true information [really?] about what its warriors are doing.
[Do we need to know what they normally do? If you know or knew anyone in the military, they can tell you. I'm an ex-Marine and I can tell you that they sit around a lot, until they get another task they are ordered to fulfill, and execute 'til completed.]
Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And we're almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the Iraqi prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us. We get
> a non-stop feed of gloom and doom. But we don't hear about the heroes. The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue. [The world that your grandparents struggled in is quite different than what we have today, so you ought not always agree with their point-of-view. Perhaps you ought to just think about things more.]
The ones we completely ignore. [Are we really ignoring them? Who are they again? Sorry, there are millions of people in the world. Sorry if I don't know all of them.] Like Brian Chontosh.
> It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee. When all hell broke loose. Ambush city. The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. [Really? Sounds like a significant part of that 700+ killed; all in one battle!] Mortars, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in charge. It s
do or die and it was up to him. [All on his shoulders, eh? Wow. What a burden!] So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire. [Not descriptive enough. Not sure what's going on here. Obviously, this guy wasn't there.] It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish. And
Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. [Surprising! Considering he was under enemy fire!] He told his driver to floor the
humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them. [Shame that the gunner had to wait for the order!] Within moments
there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines. [They dig trenches over there? Is he mixing up Operation Iraqui freedom with WWII Normandy?] Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride. And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers. And he
killed them all. [I didn't know the "insurgents" had that much artillery and munitions!] He fought with the M16 until it was out of ammo. Then he
fought with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead man's AK47 [famous Commie weapon] and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. At one point
he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion. [Wow incredible trench warfare going on in the same single trench!] When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared
200yards of entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had
killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more. But that's
probably not how he would tell it. He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on. [The Hummer survived? Wow! Oh by the way, it's "OO-RAH!"]
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in
the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval
Service."
>
That's what the citation says. And that's what nobody will hear.
That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts of American ifficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you wonder if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress ? to report or to deride.
> To tell the truth, or to feed us lies. [Please be more specific when you make this kind of accusation.]
I guess it doesn't matter.
> We're going to turn out all right
THE END
I dunno. I kind of don't buy the story. Maybe he should have got someone who can write well to type up his message.
The more I learn, the more I dislike the word "hero." The way it's used most frequently makes it sound inherently disingenuous. I'm more inclined to use the word hero if someone rescues a drowning child.
To call someone a "hero" who kills a bunch of Iraquis in a preemptive invasion in the service of corrupt USA interests, is more like a "Pawn of the Neo-cons" to me.
If you want to know a definition of "hero" that makes sense to me, read
comics. Specifically read my favorite: "Martial Law: Fear and Loathing" by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill...
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/marshlaw.htm
:x :( :!:
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