WorldTraveler – and can you drive a Humvee in those canels? Can you change a tire in one (especially hard since Humvees don’t carry tires – and wasn’t STB in a mech Bradley unit with tracked vehicles?).
ArmyJAG – it is a bit confusing, but the story to which you refer was from his private blog – basically he was “doodling” some war stories – nobody ever said those were real. They do go to show a propensity for bad prose in the service of being a mickey spillane wannabe. Some of the descriptitve devices are also very similar to the later diaries in TNR, which might go to show that it is all fiction.
TIM: STB can talk to anyone he wants – his phone privelages have been restored; however, the Army cannot MAKE him do so (it would be a violation of his subhuman rights). Also, bad stuff does happen in war – and when it does, TNR and the rest of the media are free to report it (and they do – think Abu Ghraib) – but if they are too lazy to find the real stuff and instead rely on some 7th rate hack , they are going to get busted. Problem for TNR, STB’s “bad stuff” just couldn’t be real, and anyone with relevant experience in any western army would know that. Too bad TNR would never hire such a person or think to have one of their fact-checkers call one. The military’s loathing for the Army and those who serve in it causes them to commit journalistic malpractice on a regular basis – any other industry that screwed up that regularly would have been hounded by the media and sued to death by trial lawyers – but then, who watches the watchers?
