My response to Brandon Lingle's Express-News Opinion piece
I read Lingle: How DOD shaped Americans' view of war in Afghanistan and decided to share my experiences with transfer, ramp ceremonies and memorial services while I was deployed to Afghanistan.
I deployed to Bagram, Afghanistan with the 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment as part of CJTF-82 from January 2007 to May 2008. During that time, I stood in the dust along Disney Drive over 100 times to salute the transfer cases make their final journey home.
The transfer, ramp ceremony and memorial services were always recorded by either combat camera or public affairs specialist. The imagery wasn’t released but was handed over to the fallen warrior’s unit to give to the family to see how their loved one was honored.
Only official photographers and videographers were allowed to capture imagery of those events. We asked visiting journalist to respect that prohibition also.
Lingle said, “War efforts, like any institution, have a baked-in desire to keep themselves going. It’s hard to maintain support when the public sees and understands the true costs.”
While my experience of capturing imagery of those ceremonies was different than Lingle’s I agree with his assessment in that statement. I think we did the American public and our fallen servicemembers a great injustice by not allowing imagery of their final moments in Afghanistan to be published.
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We owed it to the American people to show them the cost they were paying for our operations in Afghanistan. Telling them that we were spending billions of dollars to fund the war wasn’t really showing them the true cost. Most people can’t conceptualize that much money.
They can conceptualize flag draped transfer cases. They can conceptualize the emotions displayed by our troops as they mourn the loss of one of their own. They can conceptualize the pain and suffering of a wounded service member.
The Department of Defense failed the American people by not showing them the true cost of what we were asking our service members to do. I feel like I failed the American people as one of the senior Public Affairs on the ground in Afghanistan at the time by upholding the ban on the release of that imagery.
We owed the American public, our service members, and their families the whole truth about the cost we were paying in Afghanistan. We failed to provide that in a meaningful, understandable way that helped us to understand the cost of war.
In the future I can only hope we do better, but I don’t think the DoD will learn a lesson from its actions with imagery from those final moments of a warrior’s journey home. We owe it to the American people to tell them the truth no matter how ugly or painful it is to us as an institution.?
Tech Reporter @ San Antonio Express-News
1 年Thanks for writing this.
Management and Communications Consultant
3 年Folks, the bottom line is that while the service PA organizations and people want to tell the story and maintain the trust of the US, we all work for DoD, and it is a purely political organization. We will always be forced, from the top down, to fudge and spin to meet the political requirements of our masters.
Owner at Doheny Promo
3 年Chris Belcher Yes, totally agree. We were good about putting out factual information to combat ‘misinformtaion’ being told to the people in Afghanistan/Iraq but never good enough toward the American people. We showed the reporters what we wanted them to see and let them interview who we wanted them to interview. I think at the end of the day even the echelon commanders just wanted to do their part without unnecessary side distractions (media) and get their troops home alive and not sure I can blame them. It was always a race to finish I felt like. Don’t even get me started on release authority, especially when the higher headquarters was a dumpster fire and you knew it and just had to sit on your hands. This has been a very unique time, our ENTIRE careers were spend in conflict and we deployed multiple times to different areas and so we know what the truth looks like. Not sure another generation of “story tellers” will ever be able to say that.
“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.” - Potter Stewart, former SCOTUS ????????
3 年Thanks for sharing Chris. I appreciate your openness in sharing your reflections as we bookend and seek closure for this campaign called GWOT. I did not serve in Afghanistan, but did Iraq twice - Afghanistan’s embarrassing Uncle. I empathize and fully relate with your reflections as a Solider, commissioned officer and former military public affairs practitioner. Below is a “piece” from a book I am slowly cobbling together which I will probably post on Linked In tomorrow morning. “Fault lies with the complaisant complacency (C2) of senior military leaderships campaign to paint shallow positive narratives (which I, regrettably, contributed to) and disastrous unsupported foreign policy braced by faux vulgar patriotism and greed.” ????????
???Epic Storyteller??? | ??Award-Winning Radio Personality ?? | Corporate Trainer | Executive Coach | Keynote Speaker
3 年Chris, terrifically written. As one of your Soldiers and a lifelong public affairs practitioner, I knew we needed to engage with the American people more intimately. Telling them everything was going great or inviting them to ribbon cutting ceremonies in the middle of nowhere-stan never evoked the emotions of the people on the ground, American or Afghan. I too blame the DoD for keeping us on such a tight leash we couldn't do what we were trained to do. Our own Army regulation (AR360-1) states: "PA exists to maintain the trust and confidence of the American public and deter adversaries. It is the commander’s responsibility to disseminate accurate and timely information (see DoDD 5122.05). a. The U.S. Army is required, according to DoDI 5400.13, to communicate with its members, the U.S. public, and international publics. The proactive release of accurate information puts U.S. military operations in context, facilitates informed perceptions about military operations, counters misinformation and disinformation, reinforces public support to Army Title 10, United States Code (10 USC) responsibilities, and helps achieve national, strategic, operational, and tactical objectives." We failed in that very first line; to maintain the trust and confidence of the American people. ??