. . . . A little too ironic, don'tcha think?
Posted on 05/19/2007 5:23:46 PM PDT by Lorianne
Site contained violent, sex-oriented images one official called 'repulsive' ___ The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called "repulsive."
The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.
The site is credited to and includes many photographs of Deryk Schlessinger, the 21-year-old son of the talk radio personality known simply as Dr. Laura. Broadcast locally on 570 KNRS, "Family Values Talk Radio," the former family counselor spends three hours daily taking calls and offering advice on morals, ethics and values. She broadcast a show from Fort Douglas, in Salt Lake City, last week.
Military leaders have long grappled with how to balance positive publicity and operational security with technological opportunities for troops to tell their personal stories.
The Pentagon last week shut down access to a variety of video-sharing and social networking Internet sites, including MySpace, on its computer systems worldwide. Officials said the change was made to enhance security and protect a strained bandwidth, but critics worried that it might close a public window into the lives of deployed U.S. troops, some of which can be raw, frightening, violent and revealing.
"Yes . . . F---ING Yes!!!" said one blog entry on the Schlessinger site. "I LOVE MY JOB, it takes everything reckless and deviant and heathenistic and just overall bad about me and hyper focuses these traits into my job of running around this horrid place doing nasty things to people that deserve it . . . and some that don't."
Deryk Schlessinger joined the Army in 2004, telling a crowd of Santa Barbara, Calif., Army reservists gathered for an appearance by his mother that he resented the way Americans criticize the war without recognizing soldiers' sacrifices.
"Real people were fighting, and I wanted to be part of that," the younger Schlessinger said, according to The Associated Press.
Since Deryk Schlessinger deployed earlier this year, his mother's talk show increasingly has been focused on the battles being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan and the wars' effects on families back home. Meanwhile, the radio host has taken to referring to herself as "the proud mother of a deployed American paratrooper" and speaks frequently about her soldier son before military audiences nationwide.
Deryk Schlessinger did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment from The Tribune.
Mike Paul, spokesman for Laura Schlessinger, released a statement which said, in part, "We hope all news media outlets will respect his privacy for his safety and the safety of those serving with him." In an interview with The Tribune, Paul suggested that the page could be a fake.
That was a contention echoed by Army spokesman Robert Tallman, who said "it may be possible that our enemies are actually behind this.
"Our enemies are adaptive, technologically sophisticated, and truly understand the importance of the information battlespace," Tallman continued. "Sadly, they will use that space to promulgate and disseminate untrue propaganda."
MySpace is an online social network in which users link pages together through like interests and shared friendships. The Deryk Schlessinger page included nearly a dozen "friends," including a number of soldiers in Afghanistan, several of whom were linked back to Schlessinger's page and some of whom had additional photos of, and comments from, Schlessinger on their sites.
Deryk Schlessinger's Web site indicated the 21-year-old soldier is stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where, the site's author writes, "godless crazy people like me," have become "a generation of apathetic killers."
The site indicated Schlessinger's team has survived numerous mortar, rocket and roadside bomb attacks. It also included several graphic cartoons. In one of the stick drawings, a top-hatted man laughs as he rapes a bound and bleeding woman in front of her family. In another depiction, a man forces a boy to perform oral sex at knifepoint as the child's mother pleads for her son's life.
It's unclear who created the cartoons, but Army spokesman Robert Tallman said the drawings "are repulsive and not anywhere near being acceptable," for a soldier's personal Web page.
The Tribune learned of the Web page earlier this week from a former schoolmate of Deryk Schlessinger. Army officials said they were unaware of the site until alerted to its presence by the newspaper Thursday.
David Accetta, public affairs director for the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan, said the Army "will investigate thoroughly and impartially."
In an e-mail to 82nd commanders, Accetta asked to see "how the site is being administered and if we can shut it down." By Friday morning the site was offline, but officials didn't immediately respond to questions about who took it down.
Accetta said the pictures and writings he reviewed from the site were inconsistent with the values of Army special forces soldiers.
J.P. Borda, who administers an online index of thousands of personal military Web pages, said military guidelines and common decency are respected by "the overwhelming majority of military bloggers in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"There are a few bad apples and they have soured the whole bunch," said Borda, who began his site - www.milblogging.com - during his first tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2004.
Laura Schlessinger's appearance in Utah last week included a visit with Army families at Fort Douglas. In an interview with The Tribune, she said, "We raised our son to be a warrior."
After her Utah visit, Schlessinger received criticism for telling The Tribune that she didn't want to hear the complaints of military wives whose husbands are deployed. "He could come back without arms, legs or eyeballs, and you're bitching?" Schlessinger said. "You're not dodging bullets, so I don't want to hear any whining."
Schlessinger later wrote on her Web site - www.drlaura.com - that she was trying to communicate her belief that military spouses shouldn't complain to war-deployed family members, who have more pressing concerns. "I never whine to my son when he is able to call between missions," she wrote.
Yes, easy to resolve, just as you say.
Dr. Laura has no degree in mental health or psychology? Really? How did “Dr.” Laura come about?
Number 57 above says she is licensed in Family Therapy - probably a Masters Degree. She has a Doctorate in Physiology or something similar.
Dr laura has a ph.d. ( doctorate in physiology and a “certificate’ in family therapy ). She is not licensed in the state, and has never nor can she without a license ( which also requires so many hours of actual practice under supervision) pracitce psychotherapy of any kind. For that matter she is not allowed to refer to herself as a “therapist”..Calif statutes.
She has recently abandoned her Jewish religion.
She was estranged from her mother for 15 years...so much for her insistance on no matter what being a good daughter.she is also estranged from her sister...so much for family ties.
She touts women should stay at home with their kids, but when her son was a teenager she began a 5 day a week radio show.
she started dating her current husband when he was till married, lived with him for nine years and then finally got married...although she has that was ‘in the past’ it wasn’t that long ago!
Calling people who struggle with their life issues ‘pigs” ..:”sluts” and “stupid” ..so much for a compassionate ethical counseling. ( oh, yeah, she doesn’t counsel, she is just a therapist who just “gives her opinion”.)
I am not making judgements either. I actually like Dr. Laura although I certainly do not agree with all of her advice. I did see somewhere that they were checking with other soldiers that were on his buddy list, to verify whether the content was his or not. It wasn’t looking good for him. There were several other soldiers (buddies) that had included the same information from his myspace. I will try to find the link. I will also withhold judgement until it has been investigated.
I like her too, hopefully this is a hoax.
I hope it is not true, but that somehow it comes out that Laura did it and puts the final nail....so that her show is off the air forever. She is another embarrassing conservative. She talks about family values as she divorces her husband. I am sorry but I absolutely HATE hypocrites!!!!!!
I had not heard that....is she getting a divorce right now, from Deryk's dad?
She divorced his dad years ago. She is on number two or three already.
Anything except their own. For example the energy-intensive Al Gore household is "ok" because "he is doing so much good otherwise"
WOW! I had not heard that, I am very disappointed. I know you are not a big fan, but I always have been and had not heard that. Thanks for info.
Grisly Images on His MySpace Page Get Police Officer Suspended
. . . . A little too ironic, don'tcha think?
Dr. Laura is on the air.
She has had two husbands. Her current husband is the father of her child.
She has just announced that she is "taking a break from her column."
God Bless Deryk and his family..may God keep him safe and return him home to his family.
What name does Deryk use? I would assume he uses his father’s name—Bishop. The alleged myspace page is listed under his mother’s name—Schlesinger.
Deryk uses his mother’s last name. I have heard her mention several times that they agreed to give him her last name because the father already has several chilren with his last name and Dr. Laura wanted her family name to be carried on.
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