Does The Army Like To Create Female Heroes?
Posted by: Jessica Goldberg
Filed in:
news
11:50AM, Thursday November 12th 2009
Almost a week after the Fort Hood massacre that made police Sgt. Kimberly Munley a hero, the details of the ghastly shootout seem to only be getting more confusing. Kimberly might not actually have shot Nidal Malik Hasan four times while catching one of his bullets herself—the story that was presented the day after the shooting. An anonymous witness is now saying that police Senior Sgt. Mark Todd brought Major Terrifying down after Kimberly collapsed from gunshot wounds.
This is reminding many people of Jessica Lynch.
A soldier in Iraq in 2003, Jessica was in an ambush. Initial reports said that she had taken several bullets while firing at the enemy, Rambo-style, but had still been taken prisoner. Only, it turned out that’s not quite what happened. Jessica was actually injured by the Humvee accident itself and was treated reasonably humanely in an Iraqi hospital. When Jessica finally had her say, the Army’s original version of the story seemed like a gross exaggeration. But when asked for comment, Jessica said, “If the stories about me helped inspire our troops and rally a nation, then perhaps there was some good.”
Sure sounds like the Army agrees with her. Do you think that the Army goes out of its way to create stories of female heroes? To what end? [New York Times]
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Riley
wrote on November 12 2009 @ 11:57 am: [report]
You know the Army did the same thing with men years ago. It is called propaganda. Turns out people have trouble supporting wars when all they hear is news of more soldiers dying with no feasible end in sight.
lea322
wrote on November 12 2009 @ 11:57 am: [report]
I think the military does this in general, especially during times we are actively engaged somewhere.
lostrun
wrote on November 12 2009 @ 12:02 pm: [report]
lea322 is right. the military would have heaped any praise on whomever stopped him. They might not have known right away who was the one that took him down until they started their investigation..called the fog of war for a reason..everything is happening so fast, you don’t know what is completely going on.
cattgirl813
wrote on November 12 2009 @ 12:30 pm: [report]
You know what’s sad? The military doesn’t have to make up stories about female heroes. Take the case of SPC Shoshana Johnson or PFC Lori Ann Piestewa, soldiers who fought alongside PFC Lynch and whose stories that were overlooked in favor of coverage for PFC Lynch. This is not to say that PFC Lynch or Sgt. Munley aren’t heroes - they are. But how about some acknowledgement for those who live the stories the propaganda machine works to create?
To learn about SPC Johnson, read this story from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/23/cnn25.tan.johnson/
To learn more about SPC Piestewa, read her Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Piestewa
Laurel
wrote on November 12 2009 @ 02:51 pm: [report]
@cattgirl813, great comment.
verynervous
wrote on November 12 2009 @ 06:05 pm: [report]
it’s a good question but it’s not like she wasn’t a hero. it’s not like this information was hidden for years and is just coming to light - we’re still learning what happened. based on the information we have, i think she still showed heroism.
what bothers me is how quick we are to believe that a man was really responsible.