Appalachian Patria

Appalachian Intellectual. To me that means plain thinking. I am A Non Commissioned Officer in the Army Reserves. Let me say...My views expressed here are mine and not those of The U.S. Army, Army Reserve or my fellow brethren in The National Guard. This is entirely Sua Sponte. This is My Thinking. I'm single and in my mid 30's. Politicaly, I'm a Libertarian. (Again, Sua Sponte.I do not represent the Libertarian Party.)I love my native Appalachia, Rock n Roll and...I love God.

Name:
Location: Brevard, North Caroilina

I started blogging for two reasons. I was concerned about the changes to the area I live in, Southern Appalachia and I was about to go to the war. I was in Iraq in 06 and 07 and now Kuwait in 11 and 12. Blogging was a means of documenting my experiences and hoping it would help gain clarity. I don't feel that way about it any more. It's said people write blogs because they are frustrated, that's why people read them too. That makes us sound apocalyptic. Are we? Let it be said, what I say here is of my own thinking. This is entirely Sua Sponte and not an official representation of the U.S. Military or the U.S. Government as a whole.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Me Going Off On The Media.

It's nice to be home, at least for the meantime. I'll be back in Seattle this time next week. I'll be going back out for 7 days, I have to attend a class.

That's news on me. Now, about the news. I have this belief, that if you are paying for news, your are getting ripped off. My time in Iraq convinced me of that. Take this end of the world thing. Someone is always predicting the end of the world, it fascinates people. I think it's a little cocky, and well, people closest to me call me cocky, so, it must be cocky. Why was it news? We have three wars and they are reporting on that? Yes, three wars, count them.

While I was away good ol' Buttholeville made the national news. Some Police Officers were arresting someone when a woman threw lighter fluid or something on them and then tried throwing a flaming cotton ball on them. Now, that's not funny, but it is. How do you throw a flaming cotton ball? Well, not too good, because it didn't reach the cops. The carpet caught fire. The Police got up and put it out the old fashioned way, they stomped it out. Word is there was a meth lab in the place, I don't know. The cops ain't saying. It started out a drama arrest. The guy had misdemeanor warrants ad was acting crazy, not like it was murder, but it ended in attempted murder. Go figure.

Well, back to Iraq. Allot of my experiences the last few weeks have made me reflect on that time. One reflection being that I never saw the media do anything in depth enough to get a grasp on the real situation. Later, I was able to read between the lines on such issues. They blew allot of stories. They went on canned State Department tours, in some cases came on the Muslim Holy Day (Friday)or asked a couple of questions, smiled, snapped some pictures and whisped back off to a cozy place in the IZ. Allot of the time, they didn't grasp what was taken place. If the reporters did get something, in my opinion, it gets messed up in Big Media...Lost to the "industry standard". I would sit, well, actually stand and listen to the S2 dump (intel) almost every day. The violence would be sporadic at times. At times it was the big ticket stuff you saw on the evening news. But, what you saw,( hey, notice how coverage has nearly disappeared?) was a very small part. Honestly, allot of it would not have made sense to you anyway, but, if you contemplate our Military Endeavor, if you got your information from the news, you didn't get much.

I do enjoy the sight of a pretty lady reporter...
The Appalachianist

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2 Comments:

Blogger sage said...

I had to smile at your closing sentence... Glad you're back home for a few days.

6:30 AM  
Blogger Hill Billy Rave said...

Thanks, Sage.

7:11 AM  

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