Memorial Day
by T. Colin Dodd
From the Memorial Day edition of the New York Times.
Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited.
If Joseph Heller were still around, he might appreciate the bureaucratic elegance of paragraph 11(a) of IAW Change 3, DoD Directive 5122.5:
“Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without the service member’s prior written consent.”
According to the Pentagon, the rules were put into place to spare the families of the fallen from the added pain and anguish that might come from discovering the loss of a loved one through the media. Ostensibly, the restriction doesn’t cover un-embedded journalists, but the Iraqi police, enforcing a 1-hour press ban after each bombing, recently fired warning shots over the heads of working press trying to do their jobs.
Fair enough, but it means responsible citizens may have to dig a little deeper to remain informed, and a lot deeper to understand the reality of what our fighting men and women are facing on our behalf.
Fortuantely, there are other ways of finding out what one needs to know.
