John Moore,

it probably is true that the military is afraid to promote heroes because they know what the press will do with it. After all, that very story defames Pat Tillman by saying that original “heoric tales” were debunked.

Not a good example of your point. I’m not sure it defames Tillman to point out what Tillman’s own, normally pro-military parents bitterly criticized: the fact that the military royally screwed up and then buried its mistake, thereby causing great distress to the family. I like most Americans have great esteem for the military but they’re still subject to CYA and other bureaucratic foibles. How would you react if they told the world that your son was killed by jihadists when they knew damn well he was killed by friendly fire?

I say this not to let the MSM weasels and anti-Bush partisans off the hook but to point out, contra the Ernie Pyle example noted above, that it’s very difficult to paint battlefield events today in purely or even primarily heroic, stirring colors as was done pre-Vietnam.

To clarify, the cause is heroic, and just, and necessary; but war itself remains as it always has been: sheer chaos, in which heroism matters but is less influential than chance, superior tactics and training, information/intel, and dozens of other factors. Yes, we need and do indeed have many heroes, but if a war reporter’s primary goal is to report truth, then he will often have to report unpleasant facts. Yes, yes, I agree that our current crop of MSM know-nothings are in the main not competent to report on an institution and a warfighting milieu that few of them have any inside knowledge of.

But let’s not pretend that if truly competent, experienced military/war journalists would give us a steady diet of Ernie Pyle and heroism tales. Remember, even just and necessary wars are still war, and war is hell. Damned confusing hell, as Tillman’s sad example attests.