Posted on 09/27/2005 4:33:37 AM PDT by billorites
FARGO - A ninth-grader here has been banned from his school's assemblies after asking a sensitive question to a U.S. Army pilot.
Phil Sannes also had to apologize to speaker Michael Durant after he asked the "Black Hawk Down" helicopter pilot on Thursday whether he had been raped during his capture by hostile forces in Somalia.
"He asked a fair, hard-balled question," said Phil's dad, Jon Sannes. "I don't know why he's being punished."
"I felt the question posed was inappropriate at that time and that place," said Peggy Stibbe, assistant principal.
In 1993, Durant flew a Blackhawk in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Army pilot was shot down and captured for 11 days. His story inspired the movie, "Black Hawk Down."
He spoke to more than 500 eighth- and ninth-grade students at the Fargo middle school.
The pilot talked about being shot down and captured, but told students there were details he didn't want to share, Stibbe said.
"He knew for a ninth-grade group he could only take it so far," she said.
At the end of the presentation, Durant opened the floor to student questions. That's when Phil Sannes asked his.
"I just wanted to know," the ninth-grader said. "It was a serious question."
Durant said it was a good question, but he wouldn't answer it.
Jon Sannes said forcing his son to apologize and to miss future assemblies violates his son's right to free speech. A school is supposed to encourage students to think and ask questions, he said.
Jon Sannes said he and his son talk about world news events at home.
"You hear about people being beheaded and tortured during war," he said. "My son just had a question about that."
Stibbe said the school usually schedules only one assembly a year.
The kid sounds like an aspiring CNN/ABC/NBC journalist.
I agree.
I didn't think about telling my son about what not to ask and I'm not sure if anyone else did or if the boys were just smart enough.
I'm also sure that my friend had a preplanned non-answer answer to the question. He's over there now so he should have some more stories for my scouts in a few months.
My question would have been - WHO put this thought into that 9th grader to begin with?
In the 9th grade, I would never have thought of HOMOSEXUAL RAPE.
Serious question my keister. The kid was trying to be smartass. No ninth grade boy asks something like that in front of all his peers with the intent of being 'serious'.
I don't think the question was appropriate for the venue, but I am a prude.
I don't think we should punish 9th-graders for asking questions that are in the realm of possibility (as opposed to say asking him if he had committed war crimes while in Somalia).
The soldier I believe was right not to answer the question, although if there is a military policy about that it would have been educational if he had explained that policy so the children understood the horrors the military faces in defending our country.
I doubt the soldier needed an apology. If I told people to ask any question they wanted, I wouldn't make them apologize for asking me a question, no matter how untoward.
I don't think banning the child from future assemblies is correct either. I don't think you should "punish" the student unless he used language that is prohibited and for which punishment is spelled out.
I understand that children should be taught propriety. And I admit that every example I could think of to refute the idea he should be punished would easily be answered with the same propriety argument (for example, I'm sure the child has seen pundits on TV asking the same questions of soldiers who were prisoners of war).
I guess if I was the principle, I would have called the child down afterwards, and had a discussion about propriety. After all, the school is a place of learning, and they should be able to TEACH LESSONS without using punishment.
Or, if we really want to "punish" in a constructive way, assign the child a short research paper on prisoners of war.
Having said all that, I am wondering if the child has a history of being "disruptive", or if the school has evidence that a group of boys planned the question to be funny. In other words, maybe the school knows the child was NOT trying to honestly get an answer -- in which case the punishment is just fine. Often the first story about stuff comes from one side trying to get the media to help them in a battle.
It may be a tacky question but it is a good one. Especially to point out to the unwashed what happens to you if you are captured in the current area of operations.
Let me be clear here.
We kid ourselves. We live in a nice little bubble that we don't like to have burst with all the ugly realities of the world. Then when we see our sons and daughters lying dead on the streets of a foreign country- mutilated, burned etc- we are outraged. There is no decorum when it comes to the truth. The truth is what it is. I would rather have a ninth grader asking the gory details about a situation his country will likely ask him to involve himself in just a few years time.
I'd prefer to have a veteran up on the stage telling a kid:
That's right son- I was raped. Combat aint no joke! You might get your legs blown off! Decapitated! Tortured! Stuffed into a box and kept that way for weeks!I'd rather children understand that the world aint Effing Disney Land and that bad sh!t can happen to you than to not talk about unpleasant things like where the hamburgers come from or what happens in combat.
We are at war. We will be for years to come. War aint a Hollywood movie. To lie to kids or to not reveal the entire nature of the truth to them when we will be asking them to go and become maimed, killed, tortured etc is not just irresponsible but practically criminal in my opinion.
The kid asked a question about something he might have to deal with himself in a few years. Tasteless? Perhaps. But there wasn't an Emily Post book on Combat Etiquette last time I checked. If the kid wants to know if the man was raped, let him ask his question. The truth is never wrong.
Better he asks than we have more Jessica Lynch situations.
In his testimony of his experiences he basically told the kids that he endured a demeaning 3 years where no part of his body was spared. He then told them in advance to the question and answer period that he was not going to tell the kids of the tortures he endured during his three years as a prisoner of the Nazi.
The kids honored that statement and refrained from asking questions in that line.
I think you can take that as a “yes”.
Unless that kid's future job is in the military fighting in a foreign land huh? Better he asks his uncouth question now than find out the hard way then. We're at war. That's the way it is. We're at war and this young man that asked the question might have to be the one to do the dying for us one day. Better he finds out the truth even if it does upset a few people's feelings.
That doesn't make it right to be an insensitive idiot.
Just a guess, but I bet that during a recruits' military training the subject of torture comes up. Not a 8th/9th grade assembly.
Agreed.
Add me to your libertarian ping list, if you would please.
An inappropriate question, but nothing punishable.
Better they hear this before they ever make it to the recruiter's office no? What better place than a 9th Grade assembly? In three years many of those 9th graders would be eligible to go overseas and get a leg blown off for their country. Better they have a combat veteran up on a stage that gives them some food for thought before they ever make it to the recruiter's office.
I read Black Hawk Down. I went through basic training with one of the soldiers involved in that battle. One quote that struck me in that book involved a soldier thinking 'This is just like a movie'. Soldiers don't need to be sent out onto the battlefield thinking that Hollywood and actual combat are interchangeable.
Better children hear the truth even if it is unpleasant. And to tell you the truth, we didn't cover torture extensively when I went through basic training. We were given classes in the Code of Conduct and what was expected of us if we were captured. And I was an infantryman. Hopefully that's changed since then but as I said, one of the soldiers in the Mogadishu shoot-out was in my platoon in Basic.
I think the kid's question was honest and fair. Maybe tasteless, but not wrong particularly given that the military (and thus WAR) could be in his imminent future.
What is PC about the pilots refusal to answer?
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