Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc, It is often a pleasure to read your learned and eloquent posts. The points of willingly shedding one's own blood when duties call and the wish that one's death not be a someone else's political statement are argued forcefully and honorably. I much respect and share those views. I must add though that someone else's political statement could also be made by preventing the publication of the photos of the fallen. - - Phong > Neutral reportage is one thing, but this > thread arose on the access of advocacy journalits to photograph the bodies > of the dead to make a political point, and it is just crude, rude, and > nasty to do this. Marc James Small wrote: > Kit > > I DO have a military perspective on this. I spent four years on active > duty, four years in the National Guard, and twelve more in the Army > Reserve. I retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1994. My father > was retired > during World War II on medical reasons. I had relatives in every major > American conflict going back, at the least, to the War of Jenkin's Ear -- > every one a volunteer, by the way. No one on either side of my family was > ever drafted. > > You raise some fascinating points but the primary issues here are a) > privacy and b) political use of the pictures taken. > > We have discussed privacy to the point where we have reached some > conclusions but let us address the second point. If I were recalled to > active duty (to which I am subject for the rest of my life, though you > WOULD know that things were really a-gley at MY mobilization!) and were > killed, I would not want a picture of MY body or MY casket or MY > funeral to > be used in any sort of anti-War protest or as insignia on > anti-War posters. > It is not that I am in favor of war, as I am assuredly not -- and, for > that matter, I am MOST opposed to the curent Iraqi imbroglio, though I > generally keep my mouth shut on this as I have friends over there > right now > -- but that I accept the fundamental reality that those who are willing to > be citizens of a free country must occasionally die in its > defence: Thomas > Jefferson, himself no warrior, wrote that "[T]he Tree of Liberty must be > nourished from time to time by the blood of patriots", and that is my > position. So, if I should buy the farm, then let my death go unnoted save > by my family and allow me the honor of not making some sort of cheap > political statement out of my death. > > I have my own political views. These have rarely been brought forth on > this List and I would appreciate the LUG not becoming overly politicized. > My beliefs are my own -- but I would never wish my death to become someone > else's political statement. Neutral reportage is one thing, but this > thread arose on the access of advocacy journalits to photograph the bodies > of the dead to make a political point, and it is just crude, rude, and > nasty to do this. > > Marc > > msmall@infionline.net FAX: +540/343-7315 > Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir! > > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html