An editorial, "H. Brandt Ayers: Hydra-headed monster", "The Anniston Star", Anniston, AL, 10/15/05, http://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/2005/as-editorials-1016-bayerscol-5j14o1107.htm , begins with the opinion, "If you want to taste fear, then go to Iraq with the young soldiers and Marines in house to house combat as reported by journalists who were there with the troops".
The editorial continues, painting a picture of desperation, but pitifully reeking of the author's "choking back" his own fears in a seemingly helpless prostration.
It ends with, "What will we tell the brave young Marines — teen-agers, many of them — choking back their fears and fighting on, endlessly? If we are honest, we will tell them the war was wrong. There was a better way".
To the author, the young soldiers and Marines of which he speaks, would wish he ponder this message:
"During World War II, editorials in the vein of "H. Brandt Ayers: Hydra-headed monster" were voluntarily "domestically censored" as one of the shared sacrifices of war for discerning American journalists" (Michael S. Sweeney's "Secrets of Victory," a review at: http:// uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/ sweeney secrets.html).
These journalists understood that such editorials (and defeatist responses to such) aided and abetted the enemy, emboldened the enemy to fight one more day, placing an American soldier in enemy cross hairs one more day.
As John Stuart Mill stated in 1865, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings 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."
To this end, and for your health and well-being, you might want to consider narrowing your editorial scope to the "Lifestyle" or "Entertainment" sections.
Armond "Si" Simmons
Pell City, AL 35128
104 Wadsworth Lane
205 338 7378