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Saving Private Lynch

14:09 / 11.04.03

With the news about a TV movie being made about Private Lynch being saved during the Iraq War I was wondering if anyone could explain to me how serving in the US army would help her to become a Kindergarten teacher? Not being from the US I don't understand how joining the army was a career move.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:12 / 11.04.03

Apart from anything else, the Army will put you through college in the US.

14:14 / 11.04.03

Off hand, use of G.I. Bill benefits to finance her own education.

And, some kids can be pretty unruly.

14:18 / 11.04.03

Correct. Thank the Montgomery G.I. Bill and the Department of Veterans Affairs for that.

My own father got an Ivy League education on the G.I. Bill, in the days after the second World War.

Vet's benefits, which were essentially a compensation scheme in the days of the draft, are now a recruitment tool for the all-volunteer force.

15:39 / 11.04.03

I've heard that Bush actually cut VA funds during the war, only all real quiet-like.

Anybody else got skinny on that?

15:54 / 11.04.03

Yup. Well, he proposed cuts to the VA in his budget, which is still being wrangled...

"The Republican budget cuts each category of veterans programs provided through the Department of Veterans Affairs - mandatory benefits and discretionary funds for health care - by a total of $15 billion over the next ten years, compared with the levels needed to maintain current law benefits and current levels of purchasing power for health care."

Not sure what that means—has the actual dollar amount been cut, or is it simply staying static, instead of growing to keep pace with inflation?

In any case, predictions are dire:

"[The Republican] budget will impose across-the-board cuts of 3.8 percent in mandatory spending on entitlements such as compensation for service-connected disabilities, burial benefits, means-tested pensions for permanently disabled low-income veterans, and education benefits like the Montgomery GI Bill. These benefits comprise 93 percent of the funding for programs under the jurisdiction of the Veterans’ Affairs (VA) Committee. For many veterans, this could mean eliminating burial benefits and reducing the cost of living allowance (COLA) increases in compensation payments with service-connected disabilities for the next six to ten years.

"This could mean 168,000 fewer veterans with health benefits, 400,000 fewer hospital bed days of care for veterans, or 8,700 fewer nurses in VA hospitals. These cuts would arrive right at the same time that most analysts predict our aging veterans will become even more dependent upon our nation’s veterans health care programs."

There are certain scare tactics being deployed in this press release—the cuts are to mandatory spending, which may not effect actual spending (though odds are it will), and there are lots of "could"s in there. But even if this spin is making it look like a bigger cut than it actually is, it's still substantial.

15:55 / 11.04.03

Troops to Teachers, an initiative by the Dept of Education & Dept of Defense to assist Army personnel considering a second career in public school education, with a special emphasis on schools in low-income areas. They supply funding towards teacher's certification, job leads and the like; in turn, low-income schools gain access to teachers equipped to keep rowdy students in line, cover more technical subjects, and promote the military as a post-high school career choice to low-income students.

Dunno about the VA funds.

Foust is SO authentic

16:56 / 13.04.03

[thread rot]

I can't wait for that TV movie. What are the chances that the officers responsible for the rescue had signed a book deal before signing the order to go in after her?

08:39 / 14.04.03

Joining the army is definitely a career move. GI Bill benefits aside, the army provides a bigger paycheck and a more interesting job than working at Wal-Mart or McDonalds does. Many of the people who join the army come from areas where job opportunities are quite limited. And yes, the GI Bill helps people who wouldn't otherwise be able to go to college afford to go.

Back to "Saving Private Lynch": very interesting article in either the Guardian or the NYTimes discussing how the use of such phrases as "Saving Private Lynch" by the media was a mistake, as it further distanced the public from teh reality of this war, and made the war seem more like a movie.

Let me see if I can dig that up...

08:51 / 14.04.03

It is from the Times but I can't find the article. Anyway, Here's a snippet from the Guardian:

What was wrong with the filmic reference as a headline? "The problem with Saving Private Blank is that it tends to reinforce the impression - created by unparalleled breadth of visual coverage and the excitability of commentators deprived of a proper war for 20 years - that Gulf war 2 is a film about a war, and not a war itself,"

01:58 / 15.07.03

But wait Cherry, it gets better. Earlier today I was wondering why Jessica Lynch hasn't had any interviews. Well, It looks like the whole rescue angle might have been bullshit.

"There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."
and my favorite bit:
Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance. But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, raced toward a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.

So, why hasn't she been interviewed since her return?

From the US rebuttal to the BBC report: Doctors now say Jessica Lynch has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will.

Beautiful.

02:50 / 15.07.03

Annnnd Nic already covered it here.

20:54 / 21.07.03

Just to give an update on the G.I.Bill. I believe years ago the system was a little different. After WW2 you'd go to pretty much any college which would accept you and the Military would pay for it. So you could go to Harvard or some other expensive school and not worry about the cost.

I did a few years in the Army (how I got out with an honorable discharge is mind-boggling) and received the G.I.Bill and the Army College Fund (which is an additional amount of money added to the G.I.Bill). How it works is that I go to any school that will accept me, pay the tuition out of my pocket initially, and every month I'm in school I call the Veteran's Affairs office to let them know I'm still going, and once a month while I'm attending they send me a check which is the equivalent of your total G.I.Bill money divided by how many months of active service you completed.

At roughly $800 a month for full time classes, it wouldn't make a huge dent in the really expensive colleges, but at a community college it's almost like having a part time job. The military doesn't care if you pocket the rest of the money as long as you stay enrolled.

02:39 / 07.11.03

Jessica Lynch's view on the whole matter, from the yet to be broadcast TV interview with her:

In an advance, partial copy of the ABC interview, Lynch said she was hurt that other people had "made up stories" about her fiercely fighting her Iraqi captors. "I'm not about to take credit for something that I didn't do... It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story."

Lynch said she was thankful to the soldiers who rescued her but said she was troubled by the way the incident was portrayed by the military. "It does (bother me) that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff ... yeah, it's wrong ... I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know."

10:42 / 07.11.03

alleged sodomy details, should anyone still be trying to separate fact from fiction. not sure how i feel about this if it is true... part of me thinks it's sick, dreadful, and thank god at least the poor bitch can't remember it, part of me thinks, weeeeel, honey, you're fighting in an illegal colonialist combat, invading another country and you get caught... like, duh, did you expect 'em to be nice to you?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:52 / 07.11.03

Since she has no memory of the events, and since some kinds of medical evidence can be interpreted in several ways (if I recall, there was a notable case in the UK a few years ago where children were alledged to have been anally assaulted, and it turned out the evidence was also attributable to severe constipation), and since her Iraqi carers are acknowledged to have been very good to her, a more aposite question would be "did this happen?"

I'd like to know a great deal more about the evidence, especially since we were initally to understand she had been tortured, and it then emerged she had sustained injuries in a crash. I'm also inclined to ask about timeframes: where does the assault fit into the timeframe of her capture and her medical care?

12:18 / 07.11.03

come on even iraqi soldiers know the rule - up the bum no babies. they were being nice to her.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

12:55 / 07.11.03

I hate this place sometimes.

13:29 / 07.11.03

honey, you're fighting in an illegal colonialist combat, invading another country and you get caught... like, duh, did you expect 'em to be nice to you?

<sarcasm>Yeah, because rape never ever happens in wars that are square with international law...</sarcasm>

14:24 / 07.11.03

I'm also inclined to ask about timeframes: where does the assault fit into the timeframe of her capture and her medical care?

There's a bit of a discussion of this over here. Apparently it goes accident - assault - abandoned by captors - rescued by doctors - rescued by US soldiers.

14:27 / 07.11.03

As the book puts it:

"Jessi lost three hours. She lost them in the snapping bones, in the crash of the Humvee, in the torment her enemies inflicted on her after she was pulled from it," writes Bragg, according to the Daily News, which obtained a copy of the book.

"The records do not tell whether her captors assaulted her almost lifeless, broken body after she was lifted from the wreckage, or if they assaulted her and then broke her bones into splinters until she was almost dead," Bragg continues.

14:41 / 07.11.03

that's good. knowing that's the kind of rhetoric her own side are using to spin things i feel perfectly justified in not giving a single fuck about whether this baby-killing bitch was raped or not

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:51 / 07.11.03

I feel sick.

15:08 / 07.11.03

so be sick here. swhat i'm doing.

16:45 / 07.11.03

That is pretty fucking rough, though, Khaologan23ris; it is pretty damn offensive, which I think you know and are doing delibarately, but surely, as the long-used and pretty damn true saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right. Rape shouldn't be used as a tool of war, oppression or anything else; it is not defensible in any way, whether you are a soldier, a footballer or a member of a Royal family.

And surely you mean 'baby killing bitch' at best indirectly as she wasn't actually involved in fighting but in maintenance?

Anyway, I have no wish to get into a flame war so I'll get to my point now:

There's a reason why the book's author Rick Bragg is a former New York Times reporter; he got in a little bit of trouble for, well, lying and jumped before he was pushed.

19:30 / 11.11.03

Oh Lord.... Flynt Says He Won't Use Nude Lynch Photos

Pornographer Larry Flynt claims he bought nude photos of Pfc. Jessica Lynch last month to publish in Hustler magazine, but changed his mind because she is a "good kid ... and a victim of the Bush administration."

The photos, which Flynt's publicist says show the undressed Army supply clerk posing with male soldiers, were sold to Flynt last month, according to a statement from Flynt that was read to The Associated Press on Tuesday by his publicist.

Foust is SO authentic

01:40 / 12.11.03

They'll be on the internet soon enough.

at the scarwash

02:54 / 12.11.03

The reason that there are wars in the first place is that some people can be convinced that they are right, moral and necessary. The US Millitary personnel in Iraq are such people. They are, in my opinion, wrong. Some probably are morally bad persons, but I'd guess that most of them are simply loyal to their version of the American metanarrative. Most of them, the ones who aren't blown to bits anyway, will probably find their views on this war somewhat more complicated by the time they get home. Perhaps in some cases anal rape would be a tonic for their delusion, but I'd guess not. Advocating rape, no matter who the victim might be, puts you in the baby-killer camp as far as I'm concerned, Khaowhateverthefuck.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:49 / 13.11.03

Looks like Karl Rove didn't like Jessica talking to the media and saying the stories they had pumped about her weren't true...her brother is being shipped off to Iraq, and he will be assigned to the "Sunni triangle" where most of the fighting is still going on.

I think the saddest part of her story for me is the reason she joined the military: She couldn't get a job at Wal-Mart and the Army was the only place hiring.