The troops have a right to be disgusted. Now the taxpayers do also. ABC sent him to Iraq, ABC should pay his damned medical bills.
The men and women in the military believe in their mission and the press wants to ignore that fact.
The media is going to spin this into an anti-war message.
That is what they do.
A reporter in a war zone is in danger. Dog bites man. Neither are stories.
Now, if Bob Woodruff had dived in front of an IED to save the life of a soldier, THAT would be a story.
A-Men
That's certainly true to the people who do the reporting - the "press folks!"
Do you know this for a fact? It is equally possible his medical insurance will be billed for his care.
Last night on ABC's evening news it was clearly pointed out that the ABC network was picking up the entire tab for all medical expenses incurred in the treatment of their employees. They are being treated at military hospitals because they are the most experienced in dealing with these types of injuries.
What I find disgusting is the fact every media whore on radio or TV doesn't refer to him as Bob Woodruff.......just "Bob" as though anyone listening would certainly know just who "Bob" was.
And they see themselfs as pee-ers.
During the Viet Nam conflict it became clear that for many upper middle class Americans people in the military were considered slightly less than human. In 1969, when a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, who was a draftee, was killed when the M-113 he was driving was mined the reactions of his parents were interesting. It wasn't just that these educated white collar types (he was a government bureaucrat and she a school teacher) opposed the war and conscription. Their tone was that it was illegitimate to expose to harm such a superior humanoid as their son a math major after all.
I am pretty certain that their attitudes towards other soldiers or other draftees who had high school educations or less and who were farmers, factory workers, and such was that these people really didn't matter. I certainly picked up on this rancid attitude being from the college educated white collar strata and being an enlisted person (even worse one who volunteered) at the time. The scarcely veiled contempt for military people was at first hurtful and then something that I viewed with frigid contempt. These same attitudes of 'there are those who count and those who don't' is at the root of the ridiculously overblown coverage of Woodruff's wounding. He is a special person who counts and his injuries are the stigmata of a martyr and just to horrible to contemplate by these effete, snobbish, condescending, cowards.
Yes, that is what I heard this morning, too, and it makes my blood boil! Let ABC foot the bleepin' bill.
The press do their best to cast the military in a bad light and then when they get in danger who do they run to for protection and help.
I wish the reporters and their families all the best BUT... the coverage as if this were a national tragedy really gets under my skin.