N.Y. Times Launches All-Out Attack on Vets

It's like "Born on the 4th of July" all over again. I certainly hope not.

According to the March 2008 VFW magazine, the N.Y. Times took every opportunity to play up their disrespect for war time veterans. Nothing new.

During January the Times ran a front page three-part series called, "Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles." VFW magazine claims the Times"resurrected the worst stereotypes possible of war veterans." Allegedly claiming to care about our war vets, the newspaper placed the spotlight on 121 killing committed by Iraq vets, including involuntarily manslaughter.


Even without the absence of such great anti-war heroes like Jane Fonda and Cindy Sheehan, the paper did enough damage on their own. The Times dug up some Vietnam vet-related statistics. These so-called facts state the claim that "veterans are more likely to have committed violent crimes than non-veterans, according to government studies.

As a U.S. Army recruit I went through an eight week boot camp course during the Vietnam era. I never expected them to teach me how to emulate the non-violence of Ghandi in the face of a Viet Cong wielding a grenade ready to toss at my fellow soldiers and blow them to pieces. Just because we were told how to employ violence to stop the enemy does not follow that war veterans are violent people in a domestic situation. The reasoning is faulty and prejudicial.

Regardless, the peace-loving N.Y. Times failed to cite the Bureau of Justice Statistics (October 1981) correctly. The study actually said the opposite than the Times piece: "On the whole, veterans are less likely than non-veterans to be in prison." Of the extremely minority of Vietnam vets who were arrested for crimes during the 1980's, only 13.5% were violent.

Are we re-entering the era of war veteran bashing by the elitist liberal press accompanied by anti-war veterans films like Coming Home, Platoon, Apocalypse Now, and Deer Hunter. The pacifistic Timesmust despise war veterans. Surely, the prestige press does not want to march out-of-step with the tune played by Hollywood that loves to make war veterans appear to be murderous, psychologically screwed up mental idiots. The only intelligent people work for the Times and write scripts for Hollywood films . . . of course.

Too bad the N.Y. Times channel all their energy to tell the stories of our war heroes. Look at the marvelous film by Ken Burns, The War. The N. Y. Times is not capable of expressing such creativity and ability of capturing the patriotism of our boys who fought for this country.

VFW magazine suggests the Times do a story on "three Medal of Honor, at least 30 Distinguished Service/Navy/Air Force Cross and 450 Silver Star (U.S. Army) recipients of current wars. The New York Times doesn't do heroes. It shoots down heroes.

As a Vietnam veteran I salute the heroes of the Afghanistan/Iraq wars. I read somewhere that "if you can't stand behind the men and women who get on the front lines to defend our country, then stand in front of them." Standing off the side and shooting our soldiers down with mockery and slander is the way of a coward.

N.Y. Times Launches All-Out Attack on Vets

Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?

We are at a loss for true heroes. Our diminishing of heroes is especially prevalent in the sports world. Barry Bonds breaks the all time Home Run record amidst the hovering stench of accusations of steroid usage. Political figures are accused of financial improprieties. Entertainment divas are succumbing to drug and alcohol addictions left and right.

A few years back NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barclay claimed he was not a role model. Does that go for Barry Bonds or Michael Vick or Brittney Spears? Does anybody want to take responsibility for their actions?

In a World Net Daily article Star Parker addressed Barclay’s shrugging off responsibility as a role model: "If Charles Barkley, with all the blessings this country has cast his way, took a humble moment to look at reality, there is no way he could flippantly dismiss his responsibilities as a public figure."

Parker continues, "His {Barclay's] claim that responsibility for children's behavior should reside exclusively within the family shows he hasn't bothered in any way to look at his own black community. Very sadly, in most cases, black children have no intact family toward which to turn. Children will look somewhere for guidance. Where does Charles Barkley think these kids are getting their values – and where does he think they are formulating their views about what life is about?"

So where do we go for values? Where are the heroes of our society?

Let me pick a present day hero for you: Marine Lance Corporal Rogelio A. Ramirez.

When Ramirez was a young man, he became fascinated with the Marines. He saw ads to join the Marines on billboard. He felt a sense of power from the Marines, especially the uniforms with the crossed swords.

Soon after the U.S. went into Iraq he announced to his family he was going to enlist in the Marine Corp. He was only 16. His mother prayed the war would be over before he was old enough. He finally joined the Corp Infantry when he was 19. It was all he thought about. His father, a veteran of a local militia during the Salvadorian civil war, tried to talk him out of it. Young Ramirez felt his father was interfering with his needing to grow up.

After overcoming the protests of his parents, Marine recruiters formed the next obstacle for Rogelio. They told him he needed to pass a GED-general equivalency diploma-exam and complete 15 credits.

His mother felt relieved since she assumed her son would not want to go back to school. Over the next year Rogelio showed the discipline necessary as he had never shown before. He was determined to become a Marine. He went to night school and earned a GED. Then he entered Pasadena City College taking Spanish, Italian and math.

After finishing school and poised to enter the Corp, Ramirez discovered he still owed $1200 in truancy fines from his days of ditching high school. This dampened his chances to enter the Marines since the Corp doesn't take recruits with lending legal problems.

One other obstacle for Rogelio was about to be scaled. He found a night job at McDonald's while attending college during the day. It took a year . . . but he paid off his fines.

One other thing . . . Marines also don't accept recruits with certain tattoos. Ramirez had a tattoo on his left hand which showed he was a member of a gang. He never was a member of a gang but he got the tattoo a number of years before as a prank. With a scissors he painfully removed the tattoo himself.

Ramirez passed the Marine entrance exam and left for induction right before his birthday June 30, 2006. A year later in July he was sent to Iraq. He became a machine gunner on an armored vehicle.

On one occasion, the night of August 25, Ramirez had gone out on patrol. When his convoy was attacked, he was able silence several insurgent machine gun positions, providing cover that allowed Marines to evacuate the wounded. The next day officers asked for volunteers to go out again the night of August 26th. Rogelio volunteered to go out a second night when most soldiers would have passed.

On patrol that night an explosive device hit his vehicle and Marine Lance Corporal Rogelio A. Ramirez was killed instantly.

Ramirez had left behind a child he had with his girlfriend Carla Lopez.

Four days before he left for the war, he had these words by English philosopher John Stuart Mill tattooed on his right side:

War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." That's my hero. A man with purpose. Determination. A role model. Who needs Charles Barclay when we have Marine Lance Corporal Rogelio A. Ramirez.

The heart and sacrifice of this young man demonstrate to me that we still have heroes.

Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?