The New York Times (May 31, 2006) printed its third in-depth story about a Marine squad accused of butchering civilians, falsifying subsequent reports and perpetuating a cover up. The information reported by the Times was based on the military's own investigation. The Times has given the story prominence by placing it in the top left-hand column of the front-page three times in a week.
If the "chattering classes" ever wonder why those of us in the military family sometimes bitterly resent the media they need look no further than this story. Those who are not in the military family may be surprised to learn that what we resent (speaking for myself anyway), is not the airing of honest facts that make the military look bad but rather what is not reported.
As an avid reader of the Times, what bothers me is that I've never seen even one recent story dedicated to the heroism of our troops given such prominence. Nor have I read a front-page headline about any medal award ceremony and the story behind it. Sure I've read the sympathetic accounts of loss and victimhood of military men, women and their families but not stories about heroic acts as worthy of attention in and of themselves. If there is such a thing as "anti-military media bias" it is not in how stories are reported. It is in what stories are ignored.
Who decided that acts of heroism no longer merit front-page treatment? In WWII they got front-page attention. It is as if the arts section never printed a positive review of a movie or play, or if the "sympathy" always came in the form of cautionary tales about how hard the life of actors is and the risks attendant on appearing in plays. It would make you wonder if the paper hated plays and movies per se.
Unless helped by their media, how can the nonmilitary reader of our best newspapers gain true insight into what sort of persons are wearing the uniform when--these days--so few members of our most influential readership personally know anyone in the military? The prominence of stories about military malfeasance absent stories on heroism creates an altogether out-of-whack impression.
When it comes to reporting on the military, it is as if we were back in the 1950s and the only time you saw a story on an African-American is when he or she committed a crime or was portrayed with condescension as a victim. Balance is finally more informative. Readers who are regularly informed about how heroic our Marines and other troops are most of the time would be more deeply shocked by a story about what appears to be a gross failure, far more shocked than if they believe that: "They're all like that." They are not.
What I would like to see is a rethinking of what is considered "news" when it comes to reporting the military. I don't want fewer stories about military failures. I want more stories about men and women who bring nobility and virtue to the grim and unlovely task of war.
For instance where is the front-page above-the-fold headline about Staff Sergeant Anthony L. Viggianni? He is one of the recently distinguished heroes of the Marine Corps, awarded the Navy Cross--the second-highest military award--on the parade deck of Parris Island on February 24, 2006. Was a Times reporter sent to Parris Island to cover the ceremony? If not, why not? Reporters cover literary awards, humanitarian awards and entertainment awards ad nauseam. We know why Jack Nicholson won his Oscar and for what movie and what he had for breakfast.
Who's values dictate that a Navy Cross is less important than, say, a Pulitzer, Oscar or Penn award? Why is nobility in the face of adversity less of a story than what Ms. Hilton wore to an MTV dinner? SSgt. Viggianni was awarded his Navy Cross for his actions in Afghanistan in June of 2004. He had been fighting Taliban and al Qaeda remnants that were killing teachers and burning down girl's schools. Viggianni led his men in combat after being wounded. He chased down and killed and captured our enemies. He humanely tended to those wounded enemies he had been fighting moments before. He led his men to safety and honor. He led from the front. He did this for you and me whomever we voted for in the last presidential election.
There is nothing particularly enlightening or informative about "exposing" the military's own internal investigation of its failings if editors at our best papers ignore the individual acts of heroism that balance this grim picture. And there is no harm in being as proud of our heroes as we are disappointed and saddened by those who dishonor us. To help put the Haditha killings in context let's remember that even in "good wars" things go horribly wrong. These quotes from "Naples '44," by the late Norman Lewis (perhaps the greatest English travel writer of the last century) are instructive. Lewis was stationed in Naples following Italy's liberation from the Nazis and he kept a diary.
"What we saw was ineptitude and cowardice spreading down from the command, and this resulted in chaos...

"I saw an ugly sight: a British officer interrogating a civilian, and repeatedly hitting him about the head with the chair; treatment which the [civilian], his face a mask of blood, suffered with stoicism. At the end of the interrogation, which had not been considered successful, the officer called on a private and asked him in a pleasant, conversational sort of manner, 'Would you like to take this man away, and shoot him?' The private's reply was to spit on his hands, and say, 'I don't mind if I do, sir.'


"I received confirmation... that American combat units were ordered by their officers to beat to death [those] who attempted to surrender to them. These men seem very naïve and childlike, but some of them are beginning to question the ethics of this order.


"We liberated them from the Fascist Monster. And what is the prize? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared to us."


If Lewis' account was the only surviving document from World War II we might assume allied nation-building ended in catastrophe. We would wonder why a morally outraged peace movement didn't stop our troops from carrying out their failed and brutal campaigns.


Sixty years later and caught up in another war we are confronted by the massacre in Haditha. And we are also caught up in the anguish of another generation of young men and women asked to kill but to keep killing within "civilized" bounds, to take insults, be fired upon by men hiding behind women and children-as a matter of self-proclaimed tactics-yet not respond in kind.


To most American readers these days this is an academic question of morality, or I-told-you-so politics. To those of us in the military family Haditha is personal. All our troops confront the tortured "morality" of war. My son wrote this from his first combat tour in Afghanistan, a letter I included in my book "Faith Of Our Sons-A Father's Wartime Diary."

"Date: 9/25/03 8:27:01 PM

Dear Mom and Dad: I have learned that the right thing and the necessary thing are not synonymous, rarely are they even in the same ballpark. It's very depressing to see the results of some necessary actions, it's never pure, and there is no purity here...


"People ignore what they cannot see. They just don't want to know. The truth is too ugly and vicious to comprehend...


"In a natural state a human will kill, and kill not always for necessity, but for convenience as well. The only way that I know I am still me is that I hate that fact; I hate it more than anything I have ever known."

I think Lewis would have understood my son's distress. Perhaps he would have also understood my tears when confronting a son's loss of innocence. Yet I am proud my son volunteered. And he is glad he served his country. And I wish all Americans had a gut connection to the troops so they would know that people like my son don't kill civilians, and anguish over the vicissitudes of war. And I also wish more people read books like "Naples 44" to give them some sense of perspective when terrible things do happen in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Judging by Lewis' diary--and many other accounts--the so-called greatest generation of WWII was often badly led and worse behaved, and was certainly less merciful than our present-day soldiers and their leaders. We haven't carpet bomb Baghdad or nuked Fallujah to spare the lives of our troops. Yet most Americans are glad we forced Italy, Germany and Japan to become democracies however brutal our means.


The flag-waving boosters of our current war and their critics all seem to forget that war really is hell. Proponents sweep the inconvenient dreadfulness under the carpet (no photographs of coffins please!) while opponents are shocked, just shocked, at the nastiness. All sides seem to forget that there are no good wars, only morally ambiguous conflicts that agonizingly lead to better or worse outcomes.


Bereft of historical perspective our expectations of what wartime "success" might look like, or what "failure" might be in Iraq, Afghanistan and the so-called war on terror, seem mostly based on politics and emotion. And we do not have enough political leaders and opinion-makers receiving soul-searing letters from their children. Their sons and daughters are notably absent from our military. That's too bad.


A personal connection to our wars might discourage the sort glib hubris that leads the media to trumpet events like the Haditha killings without putting them in the context of the everyday heroism that is the norm, or the context of history. And a personal connection to our military by our political leaders would give them a stake in our troop's welfare and what we are asking them to do.


It's time to read more history. And it's time for those who support the war in Iraq to encourage their children to volunteer. And it's time for the critics of our military to also earn a little moral authority by volunteering themselves or encouraging their children to do so. Anything less is nothing more than arm's-length moralizing.

On the contrary: It is because of the nature of their work-usually performed under extreme stress and fatigue-that Marines truly have to be some of the most moral men on the planet if they are going to be effective warriors. That doesn't mean they are flawless.

"[A Marine] lives on the razor's edge of fury and retribution, along with disgust for what he sees, i.e., how the enemy treats their own people," Col. Ripley [USMC Ret.] says. "He is gripped with emotion when he sees children, many the same ages as his own brothers and sisters, and especially when he sees the mothers trying to protect them from the line of fire. He will put himself in great danger, exposing himself to that same fire just in an attempt to remove non-combatants from this danger."

He adds, "a Marine is disgusted when he sees how the enemy treat their own people by putting them in situations where they will assuredly become casualties, for the obvious reason that they can blame it on the Americans."

So it would be unfair and foolish to pass judgment on these Marines, without first finding what exactly happened at Haditha.