If you had come out of prison and spent the next fifty years off in the butt-end of nowhere, away from the media, dedicated to atoning for your brutality, well maybe… Okay, if you spend the time you have left on this earth building schools and roads and drainage ditches, feeding the hungry, passing out medicine to the sick, then maybe, just maybe some of the people you harmed might find it in their hearts to forgive you. As it is now, I think even the baby Jebus would have to find other stuff to do.
Yes, everything would have been fine if everyone had kept their mouths shut. I can’t even imagine the number of criminals who are going to sleep every night in their cells with the same thought – like the crime wouldn’t even have happened if the evidence wasn’t there to prove it.
I feel sorry for her in one sense. I think the abuse was sanctioned and encouraged from way farther up the line, and her unit became scapegoats.
What I did was wrong. The way the media handled it was irresponsible. You’ve got another thing coming if you think the problem went away with me and my friends.
I can see disagreement with the second statement, but I don’t see anything here to get angry about.
Well, I found something. How, exactly was the media “irresponsible”? By, oh, I dunno, publicizing an atrocity? Who, exactly, deserved to be protected in that situation? The Army?
Lynndie England WAS a scapegoat, and that wasn’t fair. But the Army has other problems, and she is exhibit A for that as well. Other soldiers in the same facility reported what went on and tried to prevent it; she did not.
Like I said, I can see how one could disagree with that second sentence. But I don’t see anything to get angry about in any of the three sentences, including the second. It is not appalling to hold that not everyone should always tell everyone everything they know. I know that it would be asking too much of a news agency to sit on a story like this, and I do not think they did anything wrong in reporting it. But it is easy to imagine cases in which one might wish they would–even as one acknowledges that by their very mission, they must not. England seems to think this is one such case. She’s wrong about this, but it’s not appalling to be wrong about something like this.
Not to hijack, but I found that article offensive as hell.
I’m in the Army, and I have a GED.
Not only did I score in the 99th percentile on the ASVAB, I’m mostly finished with a BS in electrical engineering and am a network administrator/electronics guru for my company.
I’m not sure if I should be offended by the article for implying that GED holders are “dumb” – “a dumber army is a weaker army” – or by the Army implying that I’m “low-quality” soldier because I have a GED.
Isn’t that the reason the military submits recruits to the ASVAB “battery” in the first place? We all know that having a high school diploma is no guarantee of intelligence. To be honest, I don’t even know if there is a statistical correlation. Think back to all the god-forsaken idiots you’ve known. Now how many of them had high school diplomas?
Though admittedly a small sample size, it has been my experience that the soldiers in the Army with GEDs have been more intelligent on the whole than your average high school graduate.
You may now go back to your regularly scheduled diatribe about that ugly ignorant bitch Lynndie England.
[hijack] Dr Cube: Don’t feel bad about the GED thing. I tried to go to college somewhat later than most people do – this was about 3 years ago – and while applying for financial aid I ran into some difficulty. Back when I was in high school, we had a choice between two options for leaving school early. You could take the (G.E.D.)Equivalency test, or the Proficiency exam. I was assured that passing the proficiency test was *much * harder than the G.E.D., but that it was the same as having actually graduated and that I could, in fact, truthfully state on job applications & etc. that I have a diploma. I took that test.
Fast forward to 3 years ago, trying to get financial aid – they told me I could get it if I had finished 12th grade or had taken the G.E.D., **but not if I had taken the Proficiency Exam. ** So I couldn’t go. [/hijack]
Um, it IS appalling to claim that the press should lay off reporting a fucking WAR ATROCITY. We have freedom of the press here in America for a REASON, dude. The press is SUPPOSED to catch shit like this and expose it to public scrutiny. What they did with the Abu Ghraib story was one of the few instances of war coverage (in the early years) that WASN’T a shameful failure.
I’m sure if that New York Times bitch … the one who did time for helping cover up the Valerie Plame story (contempt of court, I believe) had been in charge of the Times they would NEVER have covered the Abu Ghraib story. THAT would have been shameful, however much Lynndie England might have approved it.
So what about the article was incorrect? The ASVAB shows aptitude. The Army is dropping it’s standards for recruiting in the low-scoring end of the ASVAB. This is bad, because studies show that people who score lower on the ASVAB do worse as soldiers. Also, the Army standards have changed, and a GED or a Diploma is not as important as it once was; 70% have GEDs or diplomas now, compared to a goal of 90%. I don’t think the author differentiated between those with GEDs and those with Diplomas.
There’s nothing I read in the article condemning those with GEDs. As far as I could tell, the article talks about those with GEDs as the preferred recruits, along with those with diplomas; the article is complaining about soldiers being recruited who have neither, as well as low scores on the ASVAB.
So I fail to see why you think the article was offensive
A) I said I wasn’t sure if I should be offended at the article or the Army itself.
B) The Army has not allowed soldiers with no diploma or equivalency to join for a long time. The closest cases are when they let high school juniors go to basic training in the summer before their senior year, to continue in the Army full-time when they graduate; or the program where drop-outs can sign a contract and the Army helps them get their GED before they report.
I believe you misread the article on this particular point. The 70% of the Army with high school diplomas is being contrasted with the remainder who have an equivalency diploma.
C) I agree that by dropping the ASVAB standards, the Army as a whole would be getting “dumber”. The ASVAB was a several hour test, akin to the SAT or ACT, that I felt did a good job measuring both intelligence and education. However, the article only mentioned that the Army was getting more recruits with lower scores, not that the standard for joining had gotten any lower.
So, it seemed to me that the article was solely written to show that having more GED soldiers was a particularly bad thing. I can see how I might be reading too much into it though. Either way it doesn’t have anything to do with the OP (did Lynndie England graduate high school?).
The media did its job by publishing. That is what they are supposed to do. The military justice system failed to do its job by letting these people live.
If we had hung them there would have been many fewer problems.