Ex-'WSJ' Reporter Joins the Marines

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001772602

A 32-year-old former Wall Street Journal reporter has joined the U.S. Marines.

"When people ask why," Matt Pottinger wrote in a column last month, "I usually have a short answer. It felt like the time had come to stop reporting events and get more directly involved. But that's not the whole answer, and how I got to this point wasn't a straight line."

Among other assignments, Pottinger covered China for the newspaper for seven years.

"Friends ask if I worry about going from a life of independent thought and action to a life of hierarchy and teamwork," he wrote in that column. "At the moment, I find that appealing because it means being part of something bigger than I am.

[Harper_is_Bush]

1. His friends assume he actually had "independent thought" goin' on.... n/t

[Poppyseedman]

2. I heard him interviewed a few weeks ago.

Whatever his motivation, you have to admire him. Doing what he did was extremely difficult for a 32 year.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. If he were going there to better understand

the situation great. Otherwise going to another country to help Bush murder people is abnything but admirable.

[bowens43]

4. obviously he received the implant.

[daleo]

5. If he survives, he will surely write a book

It will be interesting to see what his point of view is by then. That's assuming that this isn't all a big scam - a sort of "deeply embedded" journalist.

[jab105]

6. "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" by CHris Hedges

book has been written...

[zapp]

7. Oh Joy! I can hardly wait for the book!

Jeez...

[newswolf56]

8. Significant fact from the story puts it in new light:

On completing officer training, he graduated in mid- December.

As an officer -- even a lieutenant -- his life is so far different from that of the enlisted grunts, there is absolutely no comparison. Only if he is sent into battle will he share the risk and hardships, and even then he will be protected as the grunts are not: choice of weapons, better gear, better armor -- and if he is wounded, sure evacuation (while the grunts are left behind) and better treatment too.

In the quasi-"democratic" U.S. Army in which I served (at the beginning of the Vietnam Era), officers and enlisted men all got essentially the same uniforms and equipment and suffered an equality of hardship. But that army is a thing of the past: from what I am told, the officer/enlisted distinctions began to grow with the advent of the Bush Administration and now are greater than ever in U.S. history.

Which changes considerably the WSJ reporter's odyssey: not a radical transformation at all, merely a more physically demanding job within the ruling class.

[Kolesar]

11. I see many O-2s and O-3s in the PBS Newshour death toll every night

That's our dinner tradition--watch Newshour with the tv trays up and out. I quit eating and she walks off when they show the names and pictures of the dead from Iraq. "Here in silence, are eight more." She doesn't want to cry any more.

[newswolf56]

13. Not denying that company grade (and field grade) officers get killed;

note what I said above. My point is that -- according to the few soldiers I've talked with in recent years -- the difference between EM and officer is now (and totally without past precedent in the U.S. military establishment) becoming ever more like what you'd find in an imperial army of yesteryear where the officers were gods and the enlisted men nothing but peasant cannon-fodder: one of the sub-plots, by the way, in the superb cable series Over There. Also (and for example) note that you never hear of officers having to depend on charity for body armor: the EM get the useless junk, the officers (as on-site representatives of the corporate oligarchy) get the good stuff the EM can obtain only by charity.

_________
Footnote: Not every "imperial army of yesteryear" was like this: in the German Army, for example, whether under der Kaiser or der Führer, soldiers got the best equipment, best medical care, best food etc. possible -- one of the results of the General Staff (oberkommando) system, and one of the main reasons the German Army remained formidable even on the brink of defeat, as at the Battle of the Bulge or the similar offensive late in World War I. By contrast, in the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Byzantine armies, the enlisted men were treated like peasant filth -- precisely how they were regarded by their officers. Once again, the unavoidable truth of class struggle: U.S. military EM are mostly in service out of economic desperation -- "failure" -- while for the officer corps its the same old aristocratic Great Game, and the officers treat the EM accordingly. (Another part of the brilliance of Over There was it reflected that fact without being preachy about it.)

[Kolesar]

15. I think a lot of recruits come from middle class families that value

that lifestyle: military service. I don't think believe that the US military is composed of the economically desperate. There is a conservative class in America that staffs the military and the desperate give them enough young ones to meet their recruiting targets.

Your footnote was a great read. Did you ever see the A&E made-for-tv-movie "the Lost Battalion"?

[newswolf56]

17. Slip-of-the-keyboard error in footnote: should have written "Ottoman"...

rather than "Byzantine": Johnny Turk (not Count Belisarius' superb and indomitable mounted archers).

Saw a film called "the Lost Battalion" but don't remember if it was made for TV. In the version I watched -- story of an American unit surrounded in the Argonne Forest -- some of the British troops (the relief column? I frankly don't remember) were armed not with the historically correct S.M.L.E. #1 Mk III but with the much later Rifle #4 Mks I and II, which produced a predictable chorus of jeers and guffaws from my gun-savvy companions and me. I remember one of the actors had played a Gulf War vet on NYPD Blue.

You're right about a conservative middle-class element that staffs the U.S. military, but I think they are almost exclusively in the officer corps: they often enter via enlistment (as I did) but then quickly opt for Officer Candidate School (which despite my high test scores even in the Vietnam Era I could never have done: middle class I wasn't, and what's more my family was not only not conservative but politically suspect).

[Kolesar]

19. "It's called the chou-chou, and it's junk"

That was one of the sergeant's lines early in the movie (when the boys got to France). Don't ask me to sort out the model numbers of the weapons, though, I only picked up a bit from the History Channel. The actor who played the unit commander of the lost battalion did a great job acting.

I am so removed from the military culture that I don't how conservative they are. It could be that people that young are not all that "political".

[newswolf56]

20. The "chauchat" (pronounced "show-show") was a French MG --

the Fusil Mitrailleuse M 15 -- that, just as the actor said, was unreliable junk. So, alas, were our own Colt "potato-digger" machine guns. (I know these things from relatives, now long dead, who served in WW I: one in the U.S. Marines, another in the U.S. Cavalry, a third in the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders.) American troops wanted the now-legendary Browning Automatic Rifle, already in production but not yet available -- next to the British BREN (developed in the 1930s), undoubtedly the best squad automatic weapon (SAW) ever made.

I still have some connections to the military via the families of friends. From what I hear, your sense of the conservatism of the officer corps is spot on, though the grunts are a different story entirely: they (especially the minorities) are beginning to become very aware of the contradictions, though the Democratic Party seems unfortunately too lost in its own elitism to seize upon this very teachable moment.

[saigon68]

21. the Democratic Party seems unfortunately too lost

well put--- some of the sheep here think this WAR is noble, and LOVE the Mercenaries fighting it

The first smell of rotting corpses and the sight of pigs and dogs feeding on bloated bodes usually dispels these mental flights of fancy.

[Kolesar]

22. Imagine showing up in a combat zone and being told the weapon...

...that you are going to use to defend yourself was junk. On "Tales of the Gun" , they said that the US adopted the "chauchat" because it was already in use there: same ammunition, same repair parts, etc. And the History Channel said it was junk, too, and that there was a better Browning weapon.

Now chou-chou sounds like a dog. Gotta go, bus to catch.

[rpannier]

9. Let's be fair to this guy

We keep saying the scrubbie war supporters should put their money where their mouths are. This guy is.

[gratuitous]

10. I'm sure he's signed up for a LOT of hardship . . . not

From the article:

"An officer at the ceremony congratulated Pottinger by quipping, 'It's an honor, you know, to get somebody from the dark side to come over to our side.'"

That is, Pottinger will get one of those plum postings that recruiters promise to the Black and Latino kids, will never see combat, and will regale his newest bestest buddies with harrowing stories of his notes being torn up and flushed down a toilet by Chinese authorities.

It's also nice to see that our officer corps thinks of civilian reporters as being "from the dark side."

[Kolesar]

12. the republican officer corps

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2346210&mesg_id=2346212

[tn-guy]

14. Two comments

It's also nice to see that our officer corps thinks of civilian reporters as being "from the dark side."


1. Since this was a "quip", I think that represents an attempt at levity rather than a serious opinion.

2. Actually, some journalists look to me like they are auditioning for the Stanley Johnson Memorial Press Responsibility Award.

[Kolesar]

16. Who's Stanley Johnson?

[tn-guy]

23. Stanley Johnson was .......

He was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune during WWII. Following the Battle of Midway he actually published a story reporting that Nimitz's command had advance knowledge of the Japanese plans. The only logical conclusion was that we had broken the Japanese codes. That the Japanese failed to pick up on the story is one of the minor miracles of the war.

Naval Intelligence was furious that he was either too stupid to realize how irresponsible his story was or too focused on his "scoop" and career to care.

[Kolesar]

26. Wow. Great historical account

Welcome to our message board! :hi:

[henslee]

24. Awesome. Had no idea who SJ was.

[bkcc]

18. Exactly my thought.

I give this guy credit for doing this. I wish more conservatives would follow his lead instead of just paying lipservice to the idea of war.

[brentspeak]

25. How was he able to enlist in the Marine Corps at the age of 32?

I looked into the Marines a few years ago. The recruiter told me that you had to be no older than 27 to join. The only exceptions are to those who previously served in other branches, who are allowed to enlist in the Marines at age 29 or 30.

[Ernesto]

27. Could be the mistake of his life

literally