Oregonian Report Loses Effectiveness by Confusing Marines and Soldiers

(SALEM, Ore.) - In November of last year, our writer Dr. Phil Leveque wrote "Government Medical Care or No Medical Care: for Most the Choice is Clear" - which detailed the lack of physical fitness among young Americans, and how that prevents a vast number from military service^[1].

Yesterday, the Oregonian published an article titled "Growing number of obese recruits could make it tougher to field a fit military" by Andy Dworkin, which reviewed essentially the same material.

"And it only took around four months for them to get around to it", Dr. Leveque said.

Nothing personal toward the Oregonian; we may be growing fast, but we still aren't anywhere close to the Oregonian in terms of size and reach, and we need large scale media to pay attention, a little sooner if possible^[2].

I credit Dworkin, but at the same time I question why he took a photo of a fat person in a Marine uniform and used it to exemplify a problem that the U.S. Army is having. I like the Army, they are great; I have spent a lot of time with them in wars going out on patrols and shooting the breeze in the off hours; they are really cool. But Marines are different, they aren't obese or they are removed from the service. It is a totally different program from the Army.

I don't know who was trying to make what type of statement with that photo choice. I suspect the only uniform they could find to put on an obese model was a Marine uniform, but still why should the image of Marines suffer for that? Hopefully it wasn't a decision made among jokes, because taking a cold shot at Marines that way would mean zero integrity. I'm sure that is not the case.

One of Tim King's reports with U.S. Marines based in Iraq, Al Asad MP Beat, shows
Marines for what they actually look like; not much like the Oregonian's portrayal.

They used the field uniform that Marines are wearing in combat every day in Iraq and Afghanistan; it was a very bad choice. If by some chance we are told it is an actual Marine, then it is one of the rarest photos I have ever heard of, and not a fair example either way.

You have to love the irony too, they have a 'View large size' button below the photo and whoa, does that Marine impostor fill the frame!

Doug Beghtel with The Oregonian has the photo credit on this one. I am reminded of the scant number of journalists who ever put on a military uniform. It is the nature of the beast, I have always known that, but when there are veterans in the newsroom, this type of mistake is at least potentially avoided.

I am reminded of the reporters I shared space with for all of those years in TV news and questions like, "Hey Tim, which is higher, a corporal or a colonel?"

As hard as they were to take, I knew they were legitimate questions, and I helped those young reporters out as well as I could, but they would turn around and write a report about things they knew so little about. It gives weight to that old saying... "be very scared", because these are the folks giving you the news, in more ways than one sometimes.

Every single one of those reporters I worked with had graduated from a good college or university, and they needed a lot of work once they began to work.

In his article, Dr. Leveque revealed that 75% of possible volunteers are disqualified.

"The reasons for this are ominous. One quarter are too fat. This is NOT because they eat too much or too well. If they don’t have enough money to go to a doctor, they don’t have enough money for a healthy diet including expensive protein rich meat. They also can’t afford fruits and vegetables and eat too much starch and potatoes all producing FAT.

"They also have medically untreated asthma, bad eyes and mental health issues; all treatable if they could get medical care.

"Many lack necessary high school diplomas. If they have inadequate food, must work or have poor clothes they will quit school. Some have criminal records. All of the above deficiencies contribute to criminality.

This poverty in the lower classes is putting an increasing, almost unbearable, burden on the middle class. Rich folks can be exempt from all the above deficiencies. There are damned few rich kids in the Infantry and if they were they would be officers from College ROTC."

When Dr. Phil Leveque writes about military and veterans affairs, he does so with the perspective of a WWII combat soldier who fought the Nazis in Europe. He went on to become a Professor of Pharmacology, a Forensic Toxicologist, and an Osteopathic Physician. He specialized in treating combat veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and was the first doctor to connect veterans in this state with medical marijuana, though Oregon law still does not view PTSD as a qualifying factor or condition, as California does.

In the case of military recruitment, marijuana use is a disqualifier. Under Bush, recruiters were skimming the bottom of the pool in an effort to find new recruits. In Oregon they were literally recruiting out of jail cells a few years ago. During this time, the standards for acceptance were lowered to accept what are known as "Category-4" recruits; they scored at the bottom of the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, which is taken by all people before joining the military service.

Typically and under normal times, Cat-4's are rejected. The lowering of this requirement brings an element into the military not normally allowed. If you recall, the female soldier who visually is at the center of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, bordered very close to having mental retardation.

42 years ago, as our writer Chuck Palazzo in Vietnam published yesterday, a U.S. Army company moved through two Vietnamese villages known as My Lai and Son My, raping and slashing, burning and shooting, until 504 civilians lay dead. The My Lai massacre involved a large number of Category-4 soldiers^[3].

Congress lowered the entrance standards shortly before this incident, and another called Son Thang that was committed by Cat-4 Marines of all things, just as Bush did a few years ago.

It is clear from several accounts that the standards are not the same under Obama, perhaps the entire subject can be addressed in an upcoming article.

Dr. Leveque laments the inability of these young people to join the military, and if that is really what they want, then it is unfortunate. My message to those people considering military service at this point in their lives, is that they are entering a dangerous game. Not only are there multiple wars taking place that are extremely deadly, but the military bases in the U.S. are frequently contaminated with deadly toxins from years of military environmental abuse.

A possibly unconstitutional document that has been in place in the U.S. since 1950, the Feres Doctrine, bars any person who served in the military from suing the government for any form of negligence or fault for anything that happens to that person when they are in the service. Our writer John McCarthy nailed that one hard in his article last week, "The Feres Doctrine Horror Show".^[4].

For those who go to war and come home in one piece, there is still the mental trauma of spending a year in a place where many people would very much like to kill you.

After the military comes the Veterans Administration, where you have to "prove" that you have issues and problems, because the historical pattern that we have seen with the VA time and time again, is one of deny, deny, deny until they die. Just a few hours ago, we ran a piece from Oregon's U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley about how more than one VA facility in Oregon is being directed to speed their services, as people are waiting over a month just to be seen^[5].

There is no moral to this story; perhaps it is a story about a lack of national morals. We have a soft new generation on our hands, they weigh quite a bit. They smoke pot and play video games. I think in the end it will help them live longer, not having their boots on the ground in a place like Iraq or Afghanistan.

We have reporters who don't know a Marine from a soldier, yet the eagle, globe and anchor are present on the uniform that the Oregonian used. This detachment from reality guides much of our national media, as they portray things the way they choose, and we are all guilty of that to a degree, but this one was downright insulting to those of us who put ourselves through that experience called the Marine Corps.

Me, I know too much; sometimes I wish I knew less. We need to just keep it real, that is all I am asking for. If you guys at the Oregonian need a photo of a fat Army guy, for God's sake just ask.

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com