TBC: Morning Musing 2.3.15

I have 3 articles for your perusal this morning.

 

First, now this is a guy they should have made the movie about:

 

I was an American sniper, and Chris Kyle's war was not my war

 

During my combat tour I never saw the Iraqis as "savages." They were a friendly culture who believed in hospitality, and were sometimes positive to a fault. The people are proud of their history, education system and national identity. I have listened to children share old-soul wisdom, and I have watched adults laugh and play with the naiveté of schoolboys. I met some incredible Iraqis during and after my deployment, and it is shameful to know that the movie has furthered ignorance that might put them in danger.

Unlike Chris Kyle, who claimed his PTSD came from the inability to save more service members, most of the damage to my mental health was what I call "moral injury," which is becoming a popular term in many veteran circles.

As a sniper I was not usually the victim of a traumatic event, but the perpetrator of violence and death. My actions in combat would have been more acceptable to me if I could cloak myself in the belief that the whole mission was for a greater good. Instead, I watched as the purpose of the mission slowly unraveled.

 

Jump!


Next, a scathing indictment of journalists and their perceived persecution:

 

THE PETULANT ENTITLEMENT SYNDROME OF JOURNALISTS

 

Being aggressively, even unfairly, criticized isn't remotely tantamount to being silenced. People with large and influential platforms have a particular need for aggressive scrutiny and vibrant critique. The world would be vastly improved if we were never again subjected to the self-victimizing whining of highly compensated and empowered journalists about how upset they are that people say mean things online about them and their lovely and talented friends.

 

Finally, an interesting piece of history:

 

How a Christian Congress embraced Jefferson's 'atheistical' library

 

The Pew report on religion, however, came not only at the start of a new legislative session, but during a month that marks the 200th anniversary of the most colorful debate on the value of diverse religious opinions ever heard in the US Legislature-and the outcome of that debate should be reassuring to doubters. The occasion was a House vote on a bill allowing Congress to procure Thomas Jefferson's library at Monticello as a replacement for the original collection destroyed when the British burned Washington in the waning days of the War of 1812.

 

So how you doin'?  :D

 

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