Being in the Army changed my perspective of America in several ways. Perhaps the most significant of these was the realization of the power of the press in the United States.
It is vital for operational security that the public not be made aware of everything going on in a war, but it goes way beyond that.
In coordination with the armed forces and the federal government, the press tightly controls what information is released to the populace.
One example of this is the ban on the media taking images of flag-draped coffins being returned to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan. These aren’t coffins per se, but instead, they are known as “transfer cases” used to transport the body back to their loved ones.
Other examples were how the war was spun from the perspective of indigenous people of a nation and misleading the country as to how long we were planning on keeping troops in the country.
It was like parents keeping delicate information from a small child. The attitude was, “They don’t need to know.” I don’t see it as a cover-up, but rather a careful picking and choosing information. Those choices occurred way above my pay grade.
** “You have arrived at your destination.”
I remember calling home and having my family say things like, “Sounds like you guys should be home in a few weeks.” All I could say to them at the time was something like, “That’s not going to happen.”
At the time, we had plans for extended deployments and troop rotations lasting years into the future.
I didn’t think I was naive, but one day the obviousness of it all smacked me upside the head, and I realized, “They (the American people) only know what they (the government and press) want them to know.”