Troop Censorship

"Hundreds of thousands of holiday cards and letters thanking wounded American troops for their sacrifice and wishing them well never reach their destination. They are returned to sender or thrown away unopened."

"Last season, despite the rule, officials say as many as 450,000 pieces of mail not addressed to anyone in particular managed to reach Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. But they were returned or, if they had no return address, were thrown out altogether. . . spokesman Terry Goodman said.

"'A lot of this is because of security concerns . . .' Goodman said. 'Also, being a democratic society, there could be inappropriate mail from someone who, say, doesn't support the war, and then you've got a wounded soldier getting it (U.S. Refuses Any Wounded Soldier' Mail.)"

Democratic society? Stopping the mail? Surely it is no surprise to anyone in our democracy that there are opponents to the war. And surely anyone also knows that someone who would write something hurtful to a soldier is not worthy of consideration. The vast majority of the letters would be from well-wishers, I would imagine.

One of the first responses to the above post showed contradiction:

"Sometimes our church would have the children write me letters and the Pastor would send them to me and they were welcome and wonderful. I carried a letter from a little girl that I had not even met until it fell apart and was unreadable. One of the first things I did when I got home was to call her and thank her for her letter.

"Now for the other side of the coin, a letter from someone I do not know meant nothing to me or anyone else I knew. Who wants to get a letter from some feel good liberal that is just doing something to make them pretend that they did something for the "support the troops" crowd. Want to do something to help the troops and raise their morale? Get off your duff and jump on the politicians that are holding up funds, jumping on their Generals and the commander in chief . . ."

What is implied here? First he says letters that are from unknown people mean nothing, yet he kept the letter from the unknown girl until the end of his posting. Why was the letter from that unknown girl any more important than that from another unknown writer? Because she was a member of his tribe (=church), therefore, not really "other"?

Next, he accuses the "feel-good liberals" of assuaging their conscience. Um, that would be "feel good conservatives," wouldn't it? Well, it shows great confusion. I can't see how a letter from anyone would make such an individual's vision any cloudier.