DO you mind if I don't trust the U.S. military establishment?

May 1, 2007
DO you mind if I don't trust the U.S. military establishment?

DO you mind if I don't trust the U.S. military establishment? I'm from a generation that was famous for not trusting what we used to call "the war machine."

I am appreciative of all the men and women who joined, or were drafted into, the armed forces. For whatever reason they served, personal or patriotic, they are to be honored. They are not the problem.

The problem lies with some in the military who stir the propaganda pot in hopes that Americans will blindly believe what they say. Well, there's never been a time when all Americans believed them and there never will be.

But the question of the hour is this:

Did the military really think it could transform Jessica Lynch into a Rambo-style hero simply by spinning her capture and subsequent release from an Iraqi hospital? And did the military really believe it could spin Pat Tillman's story and make him a hero killed in combat with the enemy rather than from friendly fire?

If they thought they could get by with lying in a feeble attempt to bolster the war machine, they were wrong. Lynch appeared before Congress earlier this week and told the truth in a well-reasoned statement that made me proud that she was a West Virginian.