Support our Troops

Recently I read something about a soldier who'd been writing articles anonymously and decided it was time to own up. He'd been describing some very ugly things about his behavior and that of his fellow soldiers.

I don't know how much of it is the personality and belief of guys who enlist and how much of it is the training they get and how much of it is what happens to them when they get into a terrible situation. But again, I offer Stan Goff's open letter to enlistees headed to the Middle East imploring them not to lose their humanity, and a little more info about the author in question (from LaBelle there in Columbia, MO).

A former University of Missouri-Columbia student stationed in Iraq is at the center of a controversy involving a national magazine.

Army Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who was enrolled at MU from August 2002 to December 2004, has written three articles since January for political magazine The New Republic. His articles have included stories of troops mocking a visibly handicapped soldier, picking up a human skull and wearing it as a crown and intentionally running over dogs in a Humvee.

  More at the Columbia Tribune

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. --Mark Twain