Remember the
Marlboro Marine?
Last month, you might have heard about this former Iraq veteran suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]. The marine had gained a bit of notoriety in 2004 when his photo was splashed across newspapers around the world. Cigarette dangling from his mouth, this rough-and-tumble fighter on the streets of Fallujah became an iconic image of war.
They called him a hero. And now they're calling him, his PTSD, and his anti-war stance something else...
Before we begin, a quick note:
Posts and comments shared on an online blog do not speak for said blog's entire community. We all know that. Each individual is responsible for his or her own words, and the attitudes reflect that person's ideology - not the group's. Generalities, however, pop up when enough comments begin to show similar patterns of thought, and are repeatedly supported by later posts (rather than derided).
What's found below is a collection of comments regarding the saga of the Marlboro Marine found at the conservative blog Free Republic. The point being made here in this diary is two-fold: 1) to show how flimsy and hollow the Support the Troops battle cry is on the Right and 2) to show the true feelings they have regarding soldiers returning with PTSD. The facts are ugly to behold.
My apologies in advance. For the sake of clarity and documentation, I'm including links to those Free Republic threads highlighted below. Please forgive me...
::
Back on November 11, 2004 a FR poster linked to a New York Post piece which ran the picture of the Marlboro Marine on its cover that day. With the headline Marboro Marine Fires Up Troop Morale, Blake Miller was elevated to that of hero on FR that day:
Comment #3 | I don't smoke anymore, but I think this guy's picture is great. I'm sure it just throws the Liberals in a tizzy that kids are being exposed to a REAL man.
Comment #5 | He's better than OK, he is a HERO!
Comment #18 | I suspect this young Marine will have all the free smokes he can handle soon.
Comment #49 | Can you imagine seeing your kid on TV and plastered all over the newspapers and all over the web? What relief! What pride! Please, please come home safe to us, Miller!
Comment #32 | May God keep this young man, and all our troops in Fallujah, safe from harm. Kudos to them for their fine job at taking that terrorist hellhole! As I've posted before, this photo should get a Pulitzer Prize for Photo of the Year.
You get the picture.
I think I can understand their reaction to it. The picture is pretty remarkable. But I can't help but think that they really loved the guy back then when he was merely a silent, stoic poster boy for war. On the other hand, when he returns home to us -- and begins to speak out on PTSD and begins to question the very war he fought in -- they find themselves unable to process that message in any mature way.
Then again, this is what we're dealing with over there:
Comment #7 | There was another thread on NYC, smoking and the Marlboro Man, including this line from the article: "shoot a f###in' sand goblin, win a f####in' smoke"
Comment #71 | As opposed to someone else we all know who created fake pictures of himself walking through the jungle and then used them for self aggrandizement and to try to bring down our nation.
One post, however,surprised me for its thoughtful response:
Comment #89 | Why I like his pic: It's a great way to put a face on our soldiers. My students can partially understand what his life must be like. It's a good visual aid, a good focus for them to maybe feel 1/100,000 of what it feels like to be a soldier in combat....it's not all glory.
Why I don't want to know his personal details and what he looks like without the camo: Now, he's an ideal, an icon. He symbolizes what we hope is the best about our soldiers. He looks like a professional, a stone cold killer. He looks like one of those "...rough men who stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm ...so we can sleep safe in our beds". Finding out his personal details would be, to me anyway, like the time we went to DisneyWorld. It was just after spring break, so there was lots of maintenance going on. As a result, we saw stuff behind the scenes...it took away the magic.
I'll close out the exploration of this opening thread with the following two sentiments:
Comment #34 | Love of our military is supported here at FR. I wallow in my being allowed to praise them when I wish without being called every cuss word in the book.
Comment #83 | I think after all they have been through for US, we can do whatever we have to make them comfortable. I love our troops.
Let's see how long the support of this marine holds up in a few other FR threads that have to do with him, shall we?
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Fast-forward to January 25, 2006. The Marlboro Marine has returned from Iraq and is readjusting to civilian life as best he can. The veteran now speaks, he has educated opinions on war and its after-effects. He has a voice and begins to use it -- he is no longer just a gritty face with a cigarette dangling from it. He also has PTSD.
Two FR posters submit a Lexington Herald-Leader article for debate, Famous face, humble heart (Recent interview w/Fallujah "Marlboro Man"). [Thread 1 | 2] The FR mood now changes from the aforementioned across-the-board rapture to include continued support by some (thank you to those who were mature enough to not tear the guy down), mixed in with a bit of acrimony and/or tepid support by others:
Comment #4 | Thank you for your service, Marine. And welcome home.
But, here we go:
Comment #3 | Please honor the man service do NOT exaggerate it. Khe Shan, Pork Chop Hill, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Omaha Beach were meat grinders. Iraq is NOT.
Comment #25 | No different than any other vet from any war. Some can't "wall it off". This is not making light of his situation. It's pathetic that the left will use this eternal effect to try to undermine their own defense. It's as if they have a death wish...
Comment #15 | Leave it to the MSM to take advantage of him to advance their little agenda. How about doing stories on the thousands and thousands of vets who have no doubts about what we're doing in Iraq and are doing just fine (going to college, starting families, starting businesses) after having left the service?
Comment #21 | Sounds to me like an agenda driven purpose for the photographer/reporter and the LA Times. So, they kept in touch with the Marine. And, probably fed him some of their anti-war venom every time they met him. They didn't think too much of the photographs in the beginning, but when the public's imagination got stirred, they jumped on the opportunity to 'turn' a gung-ho Marine into an anti-war critic. The left can't be trusted, not during peace and expecially, not during war.
Comment #11 | Of course they had to mention Vietnam. Of course they had to call it PTSD. Of course of course of course. Yea, left slant for sure. PTSD equals 30 points in the VA system. Made up BS disease. I just can't see Attila the Hun, the Vikings or Paw-knee Indians suffering form this so called psychological disorder!
This disease was borne from the vents of time where war was branded as all bad, never justified and soldiers suffered from this horrible disease and if they didn't, then they're mentally deranged evil war mongers. PTSD is a meaningless term. A pseudo-science BS concept.
Want to know why some woman got shot when a bunch of SF guys returned home from Afghanistan? Because their wives "Cheated" on them. But in the liberal media that's spun into PTSD lowered their threshold to violence and caused them to act out where they might otherwise not have. BS! I catch my wife in bed with another guy, they're both done - right there on the spot. I'll drill them both.
PTSD! I want to vomit when I hear that expression. It's about as trendy as some of those environmentalist issues that pop up, disappear and then get replaced by some other BS new trendy issue (What happened with acid rain?).
This "so called" mental disorder is a fashionable pseudo scientific disorder which some conveniently have when going in for their Compensation and Pension evaluation at the VA. It's a trend topic which the anti-war left likes to beat their drum to while not appearing at least openly anti-soldier. It's a racket for a bunch of shrinks who make their living off of talking to people. It's a "check the block" for the administration to CYA when soldiers come home so that when something does happen you can say "I provided mental health services!" ...
Get over it!
As if that weren't enough, this same poster continued onward:
Comment #18 | The only person I EVER knew who claimed to suffer from this was a female sitting behind me at the Dallas VA hospital talking about how much she could squeeze out of the VA while talking to her boyfriend.
My grandfather went all through France and in Germany (Actually one of the early ones accross the Rhein) in WWII. My dad is Vietnam era, and I served in Iraq (OIF1) as an infantryman/Airborne Ranger. Can't say I feel in any way that this "affected" me psychologically in some way. In fact I'd say that some guy working in a slaughterhouse sees more carnage than I did! And I supposedly saw a lot. What about people who work in a morgue? Ever see how chickens are slaughtered in mass, or cows? How about the job of "butcher"? And no, the fact that it's a human does not change things a bit. It's a bunch of flesh - bloody flesh.
(opinion)
Shell Shock, Battle Fatigue or whatever else you want to call it is a real phenomena associated with the long term over use and exposure to high stress some VETs experienced in previous wars. "You burn out". You see the same thing with some people in high stress jobs who suddenly snap, dump their family, and end up living under a bridge down by the river. What we call PTSD is a made up disease that fits into some peoples political agenda, a few VETs pocket books and a pseudo-science shrink who thinks he figured something out.
I'm not saying that "some" may really have an issue. But they are few and many who do have issues figured that out after they were asked 20 times and realized that they can cash in on it. I want those with issues to receive the best care possible. However, I don't think that it's a big deal nor a wide spread problem. Just like the song from Paul Hardcastle "19" after which people wrongly quoted the average age of the US combat soldier in Vietnam to be 19, PTSD is a trendy BS disease in about 90% (Figure pulled from my rectum) of the cases. It serves the purpose of showing "How horrible war is" for the left media.
And onward:
Comment #26 | [T]he "personal" effect of war has dwindled over the centuries. I think the effect on the psychie has been changed by the shielding and over compensating in the way we're raised. My parents and their families (depression and WWII era) accepted death and understood it's inevitability more than today's population. I went thru grade school in the mid to late 60s. If a kid died in an accident there might have been an announcement over the loudspeaker, but they didn't bring in a team of counselors! We're raising a generation of wimps while our enemies are raising fighters and killing machines. WE'D BETTER WISE UP! THIS IS A WAR!
And, like the energizer bunny, this person just kept on
going and
going and
going.
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Let's close out this exploration with a thread discussing today's PTSD as compared to WWII 'shell shock. A (UK) Sunday Times piece, Iraq battle stress worse than WWII, was discussed in two threads [1 | 2]. Looking at these threads offers a truer glimpse on what they really think about our returning troops suffering with PTSD and those who would advocate for them. You'll also see that Republican hatred of rules and conventions in wartime that we've all been aquainted with ever since Bush came into power:
Comment #1 | Rediculous.
Comment #2 | This is the real problem. News media and idiotic rules of combat.
Comment #10 | So the battle stress from the present Iraqi war is more damaging to the geopolitical well being then the sum distructive impact of World War II. Remember the old days when news services employed copy editors?
Comment #11 | I have some ideas for post traumatic stress therapy involving soldier patients feeding various traitors in the ACLU & MSM the butt end of their M4.
Comment #21 | Things are worse for our troops than I think many here appreciate: I understand better than 1/2 of Marines skilled with a violin gets regular practice there, you know. This worries me.
Comment #24 | If it is it's because they are not getting support and people are encouraging the enemy with their hate of President Bush. That puts our soldiers lives in further danger. Who wouldn't be stressed? Shame on those who are so full of hate.
The poster above has the following priceless tagline: I trust Rush. He's done more for our country than we will ever know. He's the man! Don't you just hate people full of hate, too?
Let's end with these two jewels:
Comment #5 | Yet another example of why we must destroy the Hysteric Left.
Comment #7 | Fact is when you can send a mentally slow individual to the slammer for placing a leash and an old pair of stinky drawers over some Ayrabs head anything is possible. We need to get those anti-American imbeds out of where the troops are doing their business , and we have to get democrats out of the Congress.
And now -- it's time for a long, hot shower...
Update [2006-2-6 12:9:54 by ilona]: For more information on the Marlboro Marine, along with a link to a poignant video, please see TXsharon's No Bravery.