That Sikh shooter thing
I don’t want to dwell on this whole Sikh shooter thing like the media seems to be, but on my way out the door at work today, I heard Shepard Smith on Fox News make a stupid crack about Page just being just a psy-ops guy but that he worked around the best trained troops in the Army, referring to Special Forces, of course. How does that even rate a comment?
I’m not sure if Smith was saying that Page became a killer through osmosis or if he was infested with Special Forces cooties that jumped on him while he was at Bragg.
How have any of these John Rambo fantasies played out for the media? How many Special Forces guys have gone on a rampage like this? None. They called Jeffery MacDonald the “Green Beret” doctor who killed his family at Fort Bragg decades ago, but he wasn’t special forces, he was a doctor assigned to the unit.
My favorite was Benjamin Colton Barnes (notice the scary three names) who was supposed to have been trained in awesome survival skills and was on the run after he murdered a Park Ranger in Mount Rainier National Park earlier this year. We warned how legendary his skillz were and they found him dead shirtless in the frozen northwest face down in a creek. Those are mad survival skillz.
John Muhammed, the DC sniper, was characterized as an Army trained marksman, but he was a mechanic who saw an M16 once every year when he had to go through marksmanship training and qualify.
Then there’s Tim McVeigh, their favorite. He was a Bradley gunner, and nothing he did that day in Oklahoma had anything to do with what he learned in the military, unless I missed the class on making a truck bomb sometime in my 11 years in a Bradley.
Shepard Smith, along with the rest of the media, were probably disappointed when they found out that Page wasn’t an unleashed Jason Bourne-like killer running the streets like a mad man, kickin’ ass and shooting everyone, but reality doesn’t fit their fantasies.
Category: Media
The news media is all about sensationalism. They’ve been erroneously using the term ‘sniper’ for years….much to the disgust of actual snipers. This is just more of the same.
I can’t wait to see an FOIA on this asshole. Dollars to doughnuts his unit busted him down and shipped off to another unit while he was being chaptered out. Once again, MSM idiocy is showcased as they breathlessly refer to him being a “Specialist!!!11!!1eleventy!”.
The MSM never wastes a crisis and will always over sensaionalize an event.
Not sure if this was discussed already, but there were reports there was possible more than one shooter.
Also, just typical media BS that they continue to smear the military by focusing on these stories when a (former/ex/current) military person does something bad, yet they never hype all the news stories where a military person comes home and uses their learned skills for good (the recent one the guy who dove in front of his girlfriend to save her in CO, there have been numerous times where a military member or vet has stopped crimes, etc.)
Just typical media BS. And too many idiot people among the public fall for it.
Now, now. Don’t malign Jason Bourne. He was an amesiac with pounding headaches caused by car headlights who only reacted violently when he was threatened, and could jump short buildings at a single bound.
Reporters have historically tried to associate sociopathic behavior with the military. Up until Russell and Fenton in the Crimean War, and Brady, Gardner and assorted other photographers of the Civil War went onto the battlefield and photographed dead soldiers with bulletholes in their foreheads (among other things), the media all the way back to the days of Homer the bard reported soldiering and warfare as epic and glorious.
The events such as My Lai during the Vietnam War that precipitated the “babykiller” rhetoric, have left a label on servicemen that is neither warranted nor accurate. A sociopath is a sociopath. Spending time in the military has little or nothing to do with generating or encouraging that kind of disorder.
Heck, I was in the Navy and I haven’t killed anyone since 1968.
Didn’t kill anyone before that, either, but don’t tell anyone. OK?
The media has only two story-lines where the military is concerned: victim or villian. It’s particularly convenient, because there is a link between the two: PTSD, or some variant thereof. The further link is military training. You’re turned into a killer when you go through that training, right? And you also get PTSD in the military, too? See how quick and convenient that is? /sarc
Add water, mix and stir. Voila! That’s why you keep seeing “Army veteran” thrown into all of these stories, whether it’s relevent or not.
should be “…mix and bake.”
Sorry.
If Page was SF because he hung around them, then my wife is a Ranger by injection.
McVeigh waa actually sapper school trained on improvised explosives… His face remains on thw graduation picturea on the wall.
Jonn, are you telling us that you have no middle name?
Well… there was Col. Marecek; but he only killed his wife.
If you are or were SF, Ranger, SEAL etc… it’s a duel edged sword. It will be used against you. The phonies have propped up the case against you! All other vets will be pigeon holed as well.
It’s Shepherd Smith, he’s not exactly the brightest guy. I heard him say one day that legalizing marijuana would keep it out of the hands of teenagers. I hate to burst his bubble but when I was in high school five years ago I could get booze just easily as weed. He’s a grade A jackass.
No, Athena, I have a middle name, but you can tell that I’ve never killed anyone because the media only uses my first and last names when they write articles about me.
Here is a link to an online article about Page and his white supremacist career.
http://pheedo.msnbc.msn.com/click.phdo?i=c91802d56be6c28f7facf6735c47f013
I guess TAH is supposed to have a data base on everyone in the military. A recruiter in Colorado told a reporter that we’d know where Page went to high school. So if anyone knows the answer to that question, let me know.
“I heard Shepard Smith on Fox News make a stupid crack about Page just being just a psy-ops guy” – er, *just* as psy-ops guy? Is that really how he said it? I mean, I know PSYOP ain’t as hot shit as SF (even if they are under SOCOM on the active side), but your garden variety PSYOPer is trained to patrol with infantry, brief commanding officers, and is often language trained and airborne. Well, I guess that doesn’t stack up with Shep’s impressive military career as a…wait, what was his MOS again?
Yeah I must have been on sick-call the day they taught crazy cargo truck bombs in Mike-school
I see no problem mentioning the military background of either this guy or McVeigh, so long as it’s accurate. The term “military washout” comes to mind.
Right on Jonn! The Media is victimizing veterans with this coverage far more than this racist asshole victimized those people by shooting them.
PSYOP not PSY-OPS. It’s all one word and there’s no God damn S.
A man trained to ignore pain… of being a dickhead (and apparently not well enough).
Let’s not also forget that McVeigh “had 2 days of Special Forces training” but was angry when he didn’t make it.
I’m thinkin Gagger Man is illiterate, or dumb as a bag of hammers. Possibly both.
Hey, aren’t they called MISO now?
I’m with Ex-PH on this one. I am sick of the media taking events like this and trying to make us all into violent sociopaths. The only times I shot at anybody they were shooting at me or trying to drive a VBIED into my Stryker.
I meant make us seem like violent sociopaths. It’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet.
Bob Beckell tried to call the dude a Right wing supremacist and the others on the show “The Five” said no way. Or, if Beckel wanted to go there what about….and they named every left wing nut who has committed crimes with politics and anti- everything as the “premise”. It didn’t shut Beckel up. And the cute lawyer chick said that you cannot fix crazy or predict it, but the killings had zero to do with politics. Amen.
Bob Beckel is completely out of his mind, he’s there for comic relief more than anything. He rarely contributes anyhting meaningful to the conversation outside of giving the other four something to laugh at.
A bald, 40+ year old man, retired form the military, trained extensively in the use of explosives and never qualified less than expert with any weapon issued except once (sharpshooter – 1 round short of expert) due to a back injury, and, of by the way, counter sniper trained, does not make a person psycho or on the path of death and detruction. However, during EOD school, the guy in the next room was a Navy Seal! Does that mean I am a badass dude through proximity!?!? I would bet that the media would make me out to be a chemical warfare expert if they followed me into the latrine!!! Dumb shits!
Guys, you don’t realize how awesome this truly is. As a Nurse Corps Officer, and having shot expert my last few times qualifying with both the M9 and the M16, I am now a ‘Highly trained marksman, with extensive anatomical knowledge to make my weapons all the more deadly due to precision shot placement’.
Add in the fact that I spent time at Walter Reed (Nevermind I was assigned there, you don’t worry your pretty little heads about the details) I caught a really nasty case of the PTSD that’s affected my stability and functionality in life post military.
You have no idea how this is going to boost my street cred with the high school and jr. college girls.
This is almost too easy.
/headdesk/headdesk/headdesk
ANCCPT: You’re practicing cranial stress relief incorrectly. The correct procedure is:
1. Stand 10-12 inches from wall.
2. Draw 6″ circle at chin level.
3. Impact center of circle with forehead until stress is relieved (or consciousness lost).
Using a desk is an unauthorized shortcut, and makes the procedure less effective.
Yes, I’m joking. (smile)
@15 “I guess TAH is supposed to have a data base on everyone in the military…”
I guess this makes all your peeps REAL ninjas??
“Use of the desk for cranial stress relief is authorized, but highly discouraged”- See TAH FM 101-12 ‘Emergency Stress Relief Procedures for the Office Environment”
Ha. We ought to start compiling the TAH FM. It’d be a goldmine with the characters around here.
@Twist, I prefer your first effort: ‘make us all into violent sociopaths’.
It’s a whole lot more fun. Makes peeps get bug-eyed big time.