LONDON, England (CNN) — The most eagerly anticipated
animated film this year hits big screens this weekend, as “The Simpsons
Movie” opens worldwide. The Screening Room spoke to creator Matt
Groening and writer Al Jean in London about everyone’s favorite
two-dimensional yellow family.
Matt Groening told the Screening
Room that fans had driven the demand for the movie. “We’ve had fans
clamoring for a movie for the past 18 years,” he said.
The film
has taken four years to come to fruition, as writer Al Jean explained.
“What really held us up for a long time was to have enough people to do
the show and the movie,” he said. “We talked for a while about doing
the movie after the show is done, but the show is never done! So it
really started in earnest in 2003, when we started working on this
story that became the movie.”
Technology has also played its
part. Jean continued, “The technology to do this film really wasn’t
even around five years ago. For example, there was this joke I once
pitched and David Silverman, the director, started drawing and as I was
pitching it, it went into the film and it was cut a day later. To go
from pitch to cut in two days is pretty impressive.”
Its creators
hope that “The Simpsons Movie” will both satisfy long-term fans and
bring Homer and Marge’s family to a new audience. Groening told the
Screening Room, “This movie is designed to both honor the people who
have loved the show all this time, so there’s lots of little details
for them in the movie, little characters and stuff who they know and
love, but we also want people who don’t know the family to not be
completely confused. It is a complete movie experience, but again, we
have a lot of little details that only the really, true die-hard fans
are going to get.”
And fans can expect to be entertained by
plenty of cartoon mishaps. Groening said, “When you see somebody fall
off the roof in a live-action film, it’s funny — we all love it. But
it’s not as funny as when Homer falls off the roof. I don’t know what
that says about humanity, but we do like to see cartoon characters hurt
themselves and there’s quite a bit of that.”
But how have
Springfield’s finest led the field for so long? Groening believes that
a large part of the Simpsons’ success is down to the traditional
animated techniques used to create it — and that its hand-drawn charm
puts the movie ahead of its CGI rivals. He told CNN, “The difference
between our film and these other films is that we have no penguins,
okay? So that’s the big difference. (Although we do have one penguin.)
“But
the other thing is, our film is done the old fashioned way. It’s got a
lot of errors and flaws in it. These computer-animated films — and I
love them — are perfect. They’re spooky, they’re so good. Ours is a
way for us to honor the art of traditional animation.”
Al Jean
thinks that the series’ success is also down to its wide appeal. He
says, “I have a two year old and she loves the Simpsons already, just
because of the way it looks and the family. And then on the other hand,
we do satirical references that only an adult would get.”
A large
part of the appeal of “The Simpsons” comes from its ability to portray
the more touching moments in family life, like Jean’s favorite moment
in the movie. “It’s a scene where Bart is really mad at his father,” he
told CNN. “He’s sitting in a tree outside the Simpson house at night.
He looks over and sees the Flanders house and thinks how wonderful it
would be if he lived there. It’s just really sweet: there’s something
really warm about that scene.”
Groening, who has been meeting
fans worldwide while promoting the movie, said that the Simpsons
phenomenon has excelled his wildest dreams. “It’s not just the
numbers,” he told CNN. “The numbers are good, but it’s the intensity
and the tattoos. The tattoos are freaky. You know? And it’s not all
just Bart and Homer. You’d think it would be just Homer. I talked to
this one guy and he had Millhouse, and I said, ‘Oh my god, Millhouse!’
and he said, ‘Yeah, everybody gets Bart.'”
While Groening never
expected the series to run for so long, he told the Screening Room he
has no plans to quit while it’s ahead. “The answer is, ‘No end in
sight! No end in sight!'” he said. “We’re having fun, we hope the
audience has fun, and as long as that’s true, we’ll continue doing the
show.”
Jean believes the show has proved it has longevity. “I’m
sure [it], like Mickey Mouse, will live on and on,” he said. And he
also hopes the Simpsons’ success will continue. “In terms of new
episodes, we’re doing another season after the movie comes out for
sure, and then the casts’ contracts expire, but I’d love to get another
three seasons and maybe another movie,” he said.
But what is the
legacy of this much-loved yellow family? Matt Groening sees the film as
the culmination of two decades of hard graft. He says, “I want to make
sure that everyone who’s ever worked on this show is proud of their
work on this movie, so this rewards the writers, the animators, the
actors. It’s basically a celebration of twenty years of The Simpsons.”
A
congested national airspace reached its choking point this summer,
fostering record delays at New Jersey and New York airports that
already rate among the nation’s worst for late flights.
By nearly every measure, the flying experience has grown worse this
year. Delays have increased. Passengers have missed more connections,
and airlines have canceled more flights. Even complaints of mishandled
baggage are up.
For the first six months of 2007, Newark Liberty
International Airport’s on-time performance was 66 percent, according
to Flightstats.com, an online database of airline performance. In June,
the number was worse: Only 54 percent of the airport’s arrivals were on
time.
The number of late arrivals at John F. Kennedy International
Airport, where flights have been increasing by thousands every month,
is also surging. In June, the airport’s on-time performance was 53
percent.
This summer’s problems follow the misfortunes of March, when the
lethargic response of some airlines to icy weather in New York and
other cities left thousands of passengers stranded on runways for as
long as 12 hours.
“Pretty much every time I’ve flown in the past five months, there
has been a problem,” said Eleanor Norton, a Manhattan musician who
missed a vacation to the Bahamas in March because icy weather canceled
most of JetBlue’s operations at JFK.
On Wednesday, as she waited for a flight to Columbus, Ohio, Norton
recounted her recent frustrations: canceled flights, missed connections
and long security lines. She flies almost weekly to performances as far
away as Poland, but has decided there is sometimes a better way to get
there.
“My philosophy about the whole thing is if you can drive somewhere, drive,” she said. “The airport situation is just awful.”
Hub system blamed
It isn’t likely to improve anytime soon. Even as the airlines’
performance worsens, passengers keep boarding planes — and airlines
keep adding flights. The region’s three airports, operated by the Port
Authority, handled 104 million passengers in 2006. The bi-state agency
projects more than 107 million in 2007.
“It’s the most heavily transited airspace in the country, so all it
takes is a hiccup, like a storm, in the system to create a very
negative impact on the industry,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman
for the Air Transport Association, the lobbying arm of the airlines.
Nationally, the Federal Aviation Administration expects a system
that currently processes 750 million passengers each year to reach 1
billion by 2015.
And though delays are most frequent in New York, the problem is
national. The hub-and-spoke system, used by most carriers, means that
even local travelers are affected by weather in far-off locations. The
hub-and-spoke system relies on flights connecting through larger
airports to reach their destination.
“It’s a nationwide issue, so I would not estimate that the delay
problem is going to go away anytime soon,” said Port Authority Aviation
Director William R. DeCota.
Many officials believe the airlines could improve performance if
they reduced their reliance on hubs and offered more direct flights.
Southwest Airlines, which has one of the best records for on-time
performance, avoids the hub-and-spoke system. But Southwest also avoids
the nation’s busiest airports, including La Guardia, JFK and Newark,
where sheer volume make it difficult to depart on time.
Airline officials say the hub-and-spoke system is here to stay.
Without it, they said, the airlines could not offer much service to
smaller markets.
Rather, they blame delays on external factors, including bad weather
and outdated air-control technology that doesn’t make use of the entire
sky.
Outdated technology
The airlines and the FAA are pushing for legislation by this fall
that would provide funding for a new, satellite-based air-traffic
system, known as NextGen. The new technology would allow planes to fly
closer together, opening up room for more flights.
“The transformation to NextGen has to begin now or these delays are
going to get even worse as more volume is thrown into the system,”
Castelveter said.
But many insist the airlines have inflicted much of the damage on
themselves. Officials at the Port Authority have urged the airlines to
use larger aircraft instead of the 37- and 50-seat planes that are used
for many flights.
In 2006, about 38 percent of Newark’s 363,555 domestic flights used
regional jets, Port Authority officials said. About 40 percent of
Continental’s operations at Newark use regional jets, Continental
spokeswoman Julie King said.
The airlines prefer smaller jets for some routes because they enable
frequent service and usually mean the planes are full. Passenger
revenue is increasing for many airlines after they lost money for
years. Last week, Continental reported its highest second-quarter
profit since 2000.
“From the business-model perspective, they have the right-size
airplanes flying the right routes, at the right time of the day,”
Castelveter said. “That is evidenced by their success.”
Too many flights?
Frequent flights appeal to business travelers, who pay higher fares
than vacationers who book tickets months in advance. The competition
among airlines to compete for that business helps keep fares low.
But DeCota said airlines have taken the strategy too far. He cited
the 23 daily departures from the Port Authority’s airports to Richmond,
Va.
“Why do you need this volume of flights to a destination like
Richmond, all served by regional jets?” DeCota said. “It makes no
sense.”
Sensing the decline in customer satisfaction, the Port Authority
recently formed a task force that includes airline executives and FAA
officials. The task force hopes to issue its final recommendations by
December.
“The dream would be that some of those recommendations would be very
applicable to winter operations, which are also one of the biggest
causes of delay,” DeCota said.
Some experts say the problem is more urgent than some airlines
think. They say airlines risk alienating their best customers —
business travelers — if the delays continue.
Robert W. Mann, an airline consultant based in New York, said
passengers would eventually “throw up their hands and say: This system
doesn’t work anymore. I can’t schedule meetings or be productive.”
Some business travelers said they would even pay more to avoid the hassles.
“It’s critical that business travelers be able to get there, then
get home to see their families,” said Don Giordano, an insurance
executive from Montclair who flies twice a month from Newark Liberty.
Airports risk a backlash, too. Jay Alcorta, a health-care executive
from Richmond, said he concluded after several late flights at Newark
— including one this month that cost him five hours on the way home —
that the airport “is absolutely the worst airport I fly though.”
“It’s a myriad of problems, but certainly there is too much traffic
on the runways,” he said. “Sitting there for an hour-and-a-half is
awful.”
Joe Klein today responds to my post
from earlier this morning — regarding Joe Lieberman, John Hagee and
Seriousness — without expressly acknowledging that he is doing so. He
all but quotes my post at length and says he is responding to the use
of the word “serious” as an epithet in “certain precincts in the
blogosphere.”
In this morning’s post, I referenced what has become the most common
and vapid Beltway rhetorical device — namely, the use of the term
“Serious” to bestow with respectability the people who furrow their
brows and show great reverence for government and military leaders and
reflexively support American wars and believe that muddled compromise
and principle-free “moderation” is the Ultimate Good, while demonizing
as “unserious” those who have actual convictions — such as the belief
that war is a horrific option that should never be pursued unless
absolutely necessary for self-defense and the belief that government
leaders should have their claims subjected to real scrutiny and they
themselves should be subjected to investigation and punishment when
they break the law.
In defending himself as one of the “Serious” Beltway analysts, and
in defense of what he understands as “Seriousness,” this is what Klein
wrote:
And now, among certain precincts in the blogosphere — those
prohibitively clever sorts who opine daily and endlessly about
journalism without doing any reporting (or much thinking) about it — a
new epithet: serious. This is meant to convey disdain for those of us
who grant undue credibility to people in positions of authority or
people of moderate political views. The critics have a point: There is
no credible moderate position on issues like torture. And those people
in positions of authority who gave Bush the benefit of the doubt on the
war in Iraq — including my singular and momentary lapse on Meet the Press — failed the test of being truly serious.
But, all things considered, I’m not ready to surrender that very
valuable word to the cynics and will continue to use “serious” as I
always have, unironically. Usually.
To my mind, being a “serious person” means the following: you
study the facts on the ground, you study the history, you take into
account opinions on all sides — not just your side — and then you
come to a conclusion. Essentially, that’s what I try to do, and also
the people I admire across the political spectrum (including many who
reside in the blogosphere). I don’t always succeed, of course.
Sometimes, instant
opinions offered on TV shows (see above), can seem deeply unserious and
ill-considered the moment they escape one’s lips. And various
serious people I know have momentary or long-term lapses, sometimes
very serious ones, on this issue or that. I can disagree with someone
profoundly — as with John McCain on Iraq — and still value their
opinions on other issues (immigration, fiscal responsibility and so
forth).
First, the good news: Klein seems to admit,
for the first time, that he supported the invasion of Iraq. Up until
now, he had been falsely denying it.
I would say that a pre-requisite to being Serious is being honest about
whether you supported or opposed a war before it began.
But note how odd — and unserious — Klein’s confession is. He actually
seems to be saying that he accidentally supported the invasion of Iraq
as the result of a “singular and momentary lapse” on television whereby
a pro-war position “escaped his lips” — almost like it was an
involuntary outburst or seizure of some sort — and he argued that we
ought to militarily invade another country. To the viewer, Klein’s
advocacy of attacking Iraq might “seem deeply unserious and
ill-considered the moment [it] escaped [his] lips,” but he is still
Serious.
Presumably, Klein also suffered the same sort of “singular and momentary lapse” when he went on national television and suggested
that we might want to launch a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran —
that we might drop an atomic weapon on that country even if we are not
attacked. Apparently, Serious People sometimes are prone to go on
television and start urging wars and even nuclear attacks on other
nations when they don’t really mean it.
In any event, the problem with the self-anointed “Serious” Beltway
elite is not, contrary to Klein’s self-flattery, that they study too
much information or take too many views into account. Nor is the
problem with their vaunted Seriousness concept that it places too much
of a premium on compromise and agreement, nor that it grants too much
respect for those who hold different views.
The actual problem is that the term “Serious” when wielded by
Beltway denizens is nothing more than a cheap and manipulative tactic
to demonize those with non-Beltway-approved views without actually
doing the work to demonstrate that those views are wrong. Beltway
“Seriousness” has nothing whatever to do with the studious and careful
methods one uses to reach conclusions. It has everything to do with the
ideologically correct nature of the beliefs and, much more importantly
still, the Authority and Place in the Beltway Court of those who are
expressing them.
That is how, prior to the invasion of Iraq, Howard Dean and other
war opponents became so terribly “unserious” while Bill Kristol, Peter
Beinert, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, the Brookings
Institution, Joe Lieberman, Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney were Very
Very Serious — despite the fact that Dean expressed more wisdom about
Iraq every time he sneezed than all of the Serious National Security
People managed to compile in all of their millions of words about
Saddam’s mushroom clouds and the Evil Labs of Dr. Germ and Mrs.
Anthrax.
Klein thinks that he is mocked as “Serious” because he does too much
work studying ideas and information. Actually, the opposite is true.
The “Serious” mockery stems from the fact that his views are
unaccompanied by any such work and are devoid of any critical thought.
Klein, for instance, famously defended the President’s NSA lawbreaking
by admitting
his Bush defense rested in blissful ignorance: “People like me who
favor this program don’t yet know enough about it yet. Those opposed to
it know even less — and certainly less than I do.”
That is what a Serious Person does — blindly trusts the President even
when he breaks the law, and demonizes as Unserious those who object to
presidential lawbreaking, exactly what Klein did when he scorned Unserious Nancy Pelosi in the pages of Time
because she said that George Bush should not commit felonies when
spying on Americans. Klein called objections to Bush’s lawbreaking
“civil-liberties fetishism” and said “these concerns [i.e., that Bush
broke the law] pale before the importance of the program.”
Klein also warned that if Democrats continued to object to illegal
eavesdropping, “they will probably not regain the majority in Congress
or the country,” because “liberal Democrats are . . . far from the
American mainstream” on this issue. The hallmark of Beltway Seriousness
is the inability to do anything other than spout authority-worshipping
conventional wisdom (“you better revere the President even when he
breaks the law, and stop investigating him so much, or else you will
lose elections”) which is wrong time and again, while branding as
“Unserious” anyone who challenges Beltway orthodoxy and, especially,
who opposes too strenuously the High Beltway media and government
priests. That is the essence of Beltway Seriousness.
Several days ago, I referenced a Joe Klein post
from January in which he called Paul Krugman an “ill-informed
dilettante” and said Krugman made “a fool of himself” when Krugman
argued against the Surge. Illustrating the Virtues of Beltway
Seriousness, Klein complained that Krugman failed to study the Complex,
Important Issues surrounding the Surge, unlike Serious Analysts like
himself, Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan:
As for [Kristol and Kagan], Krugman’s right: they’ve been wrong about Iraq. But at
least they’ve taken the trouble to read the doctrine and talk to key
players like Keane and General David Petraeus. Liberals won’t ever be
trusted on national security until they start doing their homework.
After
I posted that, I received an email from Krugman pointing out that —
directly contrary to what Klein accused him of — Krugman had written a column
months earlier, entitled “Arithmetic of Failure,” discussing the
military doctrine of counterinsurgency, and explaining why it was
impossible for the U.S. military to succeed with this strategy. Vincent
Rossmeier, a journalism student at NYU who works with me on various
projects, reviewed Klein’s accusations and Krugman’s column and then
wrote:
Krugman is completely right concerning Klein’s
unfounded accusation. In the “The Arithmetic of Failure”, Krugman cites
what he calls “The classic analysis of the arithmetic of insurgencies”,
a 1995 piece written by James T. Quinlivan, an analyst at the Rand
Corporation entitled “Force Requirements in Stability Operations”. He
found that “Mr. Quinlivan’s comparisons suggested that even small
countries might need large occupying forces”.
He then goes on to argue that in a country as large as Iraq, with
as much chaos and sectarian animosity as it currently has within its
borders, the US would probably need at least 500,000 soldiers on the
ground to ever subdue the competing factions. Krugman concludes that
there’s no way this is possible given our current military capacity. In
the end, Iraq is just too big of a job for the US to handle.
Krugman wrote this in October 2006, before President Bush had
adopted his surge policy (perhaps before it had even been publicly
disseminated) and therefore he’s definitely right to feel irate that
Klein, who continually has been wrong in his predictions and analyses
about the Iraq War, would accuse him of not doing his homework. As
is so often the case with Klein, he asserted his own personal opinion
as fact, whereas Krugman relied on a well-respected study to come to
the conclusion that he did.
Krugman finishes his article by arguing how we have a much better
chance of succeeding in Afghanistan than Iraq. He points out that if we
transferred in troops from Iraq, they’d be much better utilized and
achieve greater progress towards our military objectives than they ever
could in Iraq. The situation in Afghanistan, despite the recent
deterioration in conditions, is still less chaotic than the civil war
raging in Iraq. Krugman postulates that we were at a tipping point in
Afghanistan (proven correct by the recent security and terrorist threat
analysis documenting the reemergence of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban there
and on the Pakistan border). In
short, everything Krugman predicted has come to pass and Klein is, as
per usual, the one whose claims have no basis in reality.
Joe
Klein and his fellow “Serious” People in the Beltway have given this
country George Bush, Dick Cheney, the invasion of Iraq, ongoing support
for the four-year occupation with no end in sight, a public that
overwhelmingly believed that Saddam planned the 9/11 attacks, a
complete assault on our Constitution with barely a peep of protest, a
chronically lawbreaking government with no consequences, virtually
absolute government secrecy, the collapse of America’s moral standing
around the world, and a new war with Iran that is just a small
provocation away. Beltway Seriousness, know thee by the fruits you bear.
UPDATE: Atrios notes a classic examples of the use of Seriousness, from NBC News’ David Gregory on Chris Matthews’ show this weekend:
Mr.
GREGORY: I think Hillary Clinton — her sister soldier [sic] moment is
going to be telling the left that they have to sort of move beyond
their hatred over Iraq, for Bush, and think about how they’re going to engage the war on terror in a very serious and tough way.
As
Atrios says: “I’m not quite sure how David Gregory imagines The Left is
supposed to be engaging with the war on terror. . . . But, clearly,
those people who oppose Bush’s little war and think that getting out of
Iraq is a good idea are very unserious indeed.”
Gregory’s comment is just devoid of meaning — “the left” needs “to
engage the war on terror in a very serious and tough way.” What does
that even mean? Nothing. The Beltway stars who endlessly dole out the
Seriousness sermons really never do anything other than spout the most
meaningless platitudes grounded in mindless, crusty, decade-old
Washington media conventional wisdom. Hence: the Democratic candidate
needs to “Sister Souljah” the Left and the Left needs to get “tough and
serious” with the Terrorists, says the Serious Washington Journalist
who can think only in slogans and cliches.
UPDATE II: Klein responds to this post here.
I don’t have the time right now to reply further to it, and I’m not
sure there is much to address even if I had the time, but — completely
independent of whether his responses have any merit or are even
actually responsive in any meaningful way — I will give Klein credit
for at least attempting to address criticisms of this sort.
Lost amidst all the hubbub about Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of Dow
Jones is this little nugget: The little alternative weekly that could,
the New York Press, got bought yesterday! Its new owners are “Manhattan Media.” You may be familiar with their other publications, New York Family and AVENUE, not to mention a newish outfit called Our Town, Downtown. Doesn’t that just sound so quaint! What’s even quainter is that the new owners are going to merge Our Town, Downtown with the Press. Just when it seemed like it would be the perfect time for a real competitor to the New Times-ified Voice to emerge, the Press
basically gets turned into a community paper. Then there are these
reassuring words: “We also anticipate that most current New York Press
employees will be joining the Manhattan Media family.” (Does that include Martin Basroon, we wonder?) The full memo follows.
From: Tom Kelly
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 12:04 AM
Subject: Manhattan Media Acquires The New York Press
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Rupert Murdoch may have snagged Dow Jones, but today Manhattan Media is buying the New York Press.
On the exact date that our company was formed six years ago with the
acquisition of the Manhattan Newspaper Group, we are very pleased to
welcome the Press into a portfolio which can now claim truly to be New
York’s leading community media company.
We have always been admirers of the rich history of the Press. As
New Yorkers we watched the Press being born from the imagination and
drive of Russ Smith in the late 80’s with a dedicated, smart bunch of
writers, editors and graphic artists. It really shook up the Village
Voice’s dominance of the alternative market. We’ve also watched it in
more challenging times yet believe it’s a strong and recognizable
brand. It needs reviving and reinvention in a great city that’s changed
a lot, too, in the last twenty years.
It’s our fourth attempt to buy the Press, the first being when we
approached Russ shortly after 9/11. We knew that we needed to have a
distinctive voice and presence downtown but couldn’t wait for the Press
to become available on the right terms for us. So we launched our own
weekly last May and we’re incredibly proud of the work founding editor
Bill Gunlocke and his team have performed in establishing Our Town
Downtown in a short period of time. We’re just as excited at the
prospect of taking that team and merging it with the Press’ writers and
contributors to produce a better paper than either of us could have
done individually. Now the resources are just going to be deeper and
wider. We will publish next week as the New York Press.
The importance of independent reporting and opinion is even more
important now in New York. We expect to invest considerably in
editorial for the entire Community Newspaper Group. We also anticipate
that most current New York Press employees will be joining the
Manhattan Media family.
We have to thank Avalon Equity Fund, L.P., who owned the Press, for
helping us to arrange for this transaction and doing all they could to
assure a smooth transition.
The purchase of the New York Press is very much in line with our
previous acquisition policy: finding media which have a long history
serving their communities. In addition to the other titles in our weekly
community newspaper group, the Press joins AVENUE (coincidentally also
acquired August 1, 2002) and New York Family. We also remain very
committed to start-ups where they fill important gaps in the market –
our launches of the Blackboard Awards and City Hall are excellent
examples.
For all of you at Manhattan Media, this acquisition marks another
step in the growth of our company. We remain absolutely committed to
growing this company with a long-term view for the benefit of its
shareholders, employees, clients and readers.
Whoopi Goldberg will bring no celebrity feuds with her when she joins “The View,” at least none that she’s aware of.
“Who knows?” she told The Associated Press. “Anybody could say `I don’t like her.’ That’s OK. I just won’t come to your home.”
That
already sets Goldberg apart from her predecessor. “The View,” putting
Rosie O’Donnell in its rearview mirror, officially introduced Goldberg
to the show’s audience as its moderator on Wednesday. She’ll start full
time the day after Labor Day.
The show is on the lookout for
another cast member to join Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck
and creator Barbara Walters. That person won’t be named until the fall,
Walters said.
O’Donnell announced this spring she was leaving
ABC’s daytime talk show after less than a year filled with controversy
and feuds with Donald Trump and co-star Hasselbeck, among others.
Despite O’Donnell’s polarizing presence – or maybe because of it – ratings shot up last year.
Goldberg,
51, gives “The View” a genuinely big name and distinct personality in
her own right. She’s among the select few performers to win an Oscar,
Emmy, Tony and Grammy award.
She’s no stranger to political
controversy, although that part of her resume isn’t quite as filled as
O’Donnell’s. Goldberg was dumped from a Slim-Fast advertising campaign
in 2004 after making a speech mocking the Bush administration at a
political rally, at one point using the president’s surname as a sexual
reference.
“She’ll be potentially less controversial than Rosie
but still have a bit of an edge,” said Bill Carroll, an expert in
syndication for Katz Television.
Advertisers are likely to be happy with the choice, he said.
Goldberg
said she’s looking forward to talking about what’s going on during what
promises to be an interesting year ahead. She’ll be the moderator,
meaning it will generally be her job to steer the discussion and keep
the show running on time.
“I just figure I’m going to be me,” she
said. “They know who I am and know what I do, so nobody will be
surprised if I disagree strongly but not meanly. I’ll never be mean.
It’s just not in me.”
Walters, in an interview, said Goldberg isn’t being brought in to calm a troubled sea.
“What Whoopi will bring us is fun,” she said. “This is an entertainment program. We are not a newsmagazine.”
She
said Goldberg brought a formidable combination of smarts and skills as
an entertainer, and also adds diversity to the program. “The View” has
been without a regular black cast member since Star Jones Reynolds left
under stormy circumstances last summer.
There were reports last
week that “The View” was also close to bringing actress Sherri
Shepherd, who’s also black, on as another cast member. But Walters said
several candidates are still being considered.
Walters teased her
“big announcement” throughout Wednesday’s show before Goldberg
appeared, slapping hands with audience members as she walked down the
stairs to the stage.
“I’m not sure what the show needs,” she
said. “I won’t know what my position is until I’m there and I’m doing
it and I haven’t given a lot of pre-thought to how I would be doing it.
But I will tell you that each time I’ve been on, I have a good time.”
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.
(nyse: DIS –
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More than
400 police officers and federal agents took part in predawn raids on
Tuesday, arresting 43 people suspected of being members of the Eastside
Pain Bloods gang in a narcotics and gun trafficking investigation,
federal and city officials said.
Local and federal
prosecutors said a joint task force would follow the sweep with
property seizures and eviction orders at eight houses and two motels
where gang members are accused of selling or stashing drugs and weapons.
Los Angeles prosecutors said they were also planning to file child
endangerment charges against several of the suspects. The prosecutors
said child welfare officials were holding 15 minors found during the
sweep.
Officials said the operation was the conclusion of a
six-month undercover investigation in a 12-block area known as Ghost
Town during which undercover agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
and confidential informants bought several thousand dollars’
worth of crack cocaine, marijuana, assault weapons, rifles and handguns.
Police
officers said Ghost Town, on the border of the San Pedro and Wilmington
neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, had long been a haven for the
Eastside Pain Bloods gang. The police said the raids focused on nine
families they believe led the gang.
“Today A.T.F. is
reinforcing the message that we will not put up with armed gang
violence and the drug trade that fuels it,” said John A. Torres,
special agent in charge of the bureau in Los Angeles. “We are
warning all gang members that if they don’t stop terrorizing our
neighborhoods and cities, the combined weight of federal, state and
local law enforcement will come after them.”
The use of
property seizures and forced evictions is the latest prosecutorial
strategy in the city’s antigang efforts. In 1987, Los Angeles was
the first city to use injunctions barring two or more gang members from
congregating in a public area.
Gang members in Los Angeles also
face harsher prosecution; misdemeanors can be charged as felonies, and
sentences can be lengthened by as much as 10 years for some crimes.
The battle between a grieving family and the U.S. military justice system
is on display in thousands of pages of documents strewn across Mary Tillman’s
dining room table in suburban San Jose.
As she pores through testimony from three previous Army investigations into
the killing of her son, former football star Pat Tillman, by his fellow Army
Rangers last year in Afghanistan, she hopes that a new inquiry launched in
August by the Pentagon’s inspector general finally will answer the family’s
questions:
Were witnesses allowed to change their testimony on key details, as alleged
by one investigator? Why did internal documents on the case, such as the
initial casualty report, include false information? When did top Pentagon
officials know that Tillman’s death was caused by friendly fire, and why did
they delay for five weeks before informing his family?
“There have been so many discrepancies so far that it’s hard to know what
to believe,” Mary Tillman said. “There are too many murky details.” The files
the family received from the Army in March are heavily censored, with nearly
every page containing blacked-out sections; most names have been deleted.
(Names for this story were provided by sources close to the investigation.) At
least one volume was withheld altogether from the
family, and even an Army press release given to the media has deletions. On her
copies, Mary Tillman has added competing marks and scrawls — countless
color-coded tabs and angry notes such as “Contradiction!” “Wrong!” and “????”
A Chronicle review of more than 2,000 pages of testimony, as well as
interviews with Pat Tillman’s family members and soldiers who served with him,
found contradictions, inaccuracies and what appears to be the military’s
attempt at self-protection.
For example, the documents contain testimony of the first investigating
officer alleging that Army officials allowed witnesses to change key details in
their sworn statements so his finding that certain soldiers committed “gross
negligence” could be
softened.
Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely
independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet
was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a
tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books
on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a
favorite author.
Unlike Cindy Sheehan — who has protested against President Bush because of
the death of her son Casey in combat in Baghdad — Mary Tillman, 49, who teaches
in a San Jose public junior high school, and her
ex-husband, Patrick Tillman, 50, a San Jose lawyer, have avoided association
with the anti-war movement. Their main public allies are Sen. John McCain,
RAriz., and Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, who have lobbied on their behalf. Yet
the case has high stakes because of Pat Tillman’s status as an
all-American hero.
A football star at Leland High School in San Jose and at Arizona State
University, Tillman was chosen Pac-10 defensive player of the year in 1997 and
selected by the Arizona Cardinals in the NFL draft the following spring.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Arizona State and graduated
summa cum laude in 3 1/2 years with a 3.84 grade point average. Ever the
student, Tillman not only memorized the playbook by the time he reported for
the Cardinals’ rookie camp but pointed out errors in it. He then worked on a
master’s degree in history while playing professional football.
His 224 tackles in a single season (2000) are a team record, and because of
team loyalty he rejected a five year, $9 million offer from the St. Louis Rams
for a
one-year, $512,000 contract to stay with Arizona the next year.
Moved in part by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Tillman decided to
give up his career, saying he wanted to fight al Qaeda and help find Osama bin
Laden. He spurned the Cardinals’ offer of a three year, $3.6 million contract
extension and joined the Army in June 2002 along with his brother Kevin, who
was playing minor-league baseball for the Cleveland Indians organization.
Pat Tillman’s enlistment grabbed the attention of the nation — and the
highest levels of the Bush administration. A personal letter from Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, thanking him for serving his country, now resides in a
storage box, put away by Pat’s widow, Marie.
Instead of going to Afghanistan, as the brothers expected, their Ranger
battalion was sent to participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March
2003. The Tillmans saw combat several times on their way to Baghdad. In early
2004, they finally were assigned to
Afghanistan.
Although the Rangers are an elite combat group, the investigative documents
reveal that the conduct of the Tillmans’ detachment — A Company, 2nd Battalion,
75th Ranger Regiment — appeared to be anything but expert as it advanced
through a remote canyon
in eastern Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, on a mission to search for Taliban
and al Qaeda fighters in a village called Manah.
According to the files, when one of the humvees became disabled, thus
stalling the mission, commanding officers split Tillman’s platoon in two so one
half could move on and the other could arrange transport for the disabled
vehicle. Platoon leader Lt. David
Uthlaut protested the move as dangerous, but he was overruled. The first group
was ordered out in the late afternoon, with Pat Tillman in the forward unit.
Kevin’s unit followed 15 to 20 minutes later, hauling the humvee on an
Afghan-owned flatbed truck. Both groups temporarily lost radio and visual
contact with each other in the deep canyon, and the second group came under
attack from suspected Taliban fighters on the surrounding ridges.
Pat Tillman, according to testimony, climbed a hill with another soldier
and an Afghan militiaman, intending to attack the enemy. He offered to remove
his 28-pound body armor so he could move more quickly, but was ordered not to.
Meanwhile, the lead vehicle in the platoon’s second group arrived near
Tillman’s position about 65 meters away and mistook the group as enemy. The
Afghan stood and fired above the second group at the suspected enemy on the
opposite ridge. Although the driver of the second group’s lead vehicle,
according to his testimony, recognized Tillman’s group as “friendlies” and
tried to
signal others in his vehicle not to shoot, they directed fire toward the Afghan
and began shooting wildly, without first identifying their target, and also
shot at a village on the ridgeline.
The Afghan was killed. According to testimony, Tillman, who along with
others on the hill waved his arms and yelled “cease fire,” set off a smoke
grenade to identify his group as fellow soldiers. There was a momentary lull
in the firing, and he and the soldier
next to him, thinking themselves safe, relaxed, stood up and started talking.
But the shooting resumed. Tillman was hit in the wrist with shrapnel and in his
body armor with numerous bullets.
The soldier next to him testified: “I could hear the pain in his voice as
he called out, ‘Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f—ing Tillman, dammit.” He
said this over and over until he stopped,” having been hit by three bullets in
the forehead, killing him.
The soldier continued, “I then looked over at my side to see a river of
blood coming down from where he was … I saw his head was gone.” Two other
Rangers elsewhere on the mountainside were injured by shrapnel.
Kevin was unaware that his brother had been killed until nearly an hour
later when he asked if anyone had seen Pat and a fellow soldier told him.
Tillman’s death came at a sensitive time for the Bush administration — just
a week before the Army’s abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq became public
and sparked a huge scandal. The Pentagon immediately announced that Tillman had
died heroically
in combat with the enemy, and President Bush hailed him as “an inspiration on
and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the
war on terror.”
His killing was widely reported by the media, including conservative
commentators such as Ann Coulter, who called him “an American original —
virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.” His May 3,
2004, memorial in San Jose drew 3,500 people and was nationally televised.
Not until five weeks later, as Tillman’s battalion was returning home, did
officials inform the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by
his fellow soldiers.
According to testimony, the first investigation was initiated less than 24
hours after Tillman’s death by an officer in the same Ranger battalion. His
report, delivered
May 4, 2004, determined that soldiers involved in the incident had committed
“gross negligence” and should be appropriately disciplined. The officer became
a key witness in the subsequent investigation. For reasons that are not clear,
the officer’s investigation
was taken over by a higher ranking commander. That officer’s findings,
delivered the next month, called for less severe discipline.
The parents, protesting that many questions were left unanswered, found a
sympathetic ear in McCain, who Mary Tillman later said was greatly admired by
her son. Tillman was well known in Arizona because of his success there as a
college and pro football player.
McCain began to press the Pentagon on the family’s behalf, and a third probe
finally was authorized. Its report was delivered in January.
The military is saying little publicly about the Tillman case. Most Army
personnel who were involved in the Tillman incident or the investigations
declined to comment publicly when contacted by The Chronicle. The inspector
general’s press office also declined to
comment, saying only that the new probe is openended.
Over the coming weeks, Pentagon investigators are scheduled to carry out
new interviews with many of the soldiers, officers and others involved in the
incident. As they carry out their reassessment, potentially controversial
points include:
— Conflicting testimony. In his Nov. 14, 2004, interrogation, the first
investigator expressed frustration with “watching some of these guys getting
off, what I thought … was a lesser of a punishment than what they should’ve
received. And I will tell you, over
a period of time … the stories have changed. They have changed to, I think,
help some individuals.”
The investigator testified that after he submitted his report on May 3,
higher-ranking officers permitted soldiers to change key details of their
testimony in order to prevent any individual from being singled out for
punishment.
“They had the entire chain of command (inaudible) that were involved, the
[deleted], all sticking up for [deleted] … And the reason the [deleted] called
me in … because the [deleted] … changed their story in how things occurred and
the timing and the distance
in an attempt to stick up for their counterpart, implied, insinuated that the
report wasn’t as accurate as I submitted it …” the first investigator
testified.
In another section of his testimony, he said witnesses changed details
regarding “the distance, the time, the location and the positioning” in
Tillman’s killing.
Another disputed detail was whether the soldiers were firing while speeding
down the canyon or whether they stopped, got out and continued shooting. In
testimony in the third investigation, the soldiers said they did not stop.
However, the medical examiner’s
report said Tillman was killed by three bullets closely spaced in his forehead
— a pattern that would have been unlikely if the shooter were moving fast.
Spc. Russell Baer, a soldier pinned down by gunfire on the hillside near
Tillman, said in an interview with
The Chronicle that at least two soldiers had gotten out of the humvee to fire
uphill. One other soldier confirmed this account to a Tillman family member.
One soldier dismissed by the Rangers for his actions in the incident
submitted a statement in the third investigation that suggests the probe was
incomplete: “The investigation does not truly set to rest the events of the
evening of 22 April 2004.
There is critical information not included or misinterpreted in it that could
shed some light on who is really at fault for this,” he wrote.
— Commanders’ accountability. According to the documents and interviews,
Capt. William Saunders, to whom platoon leader Uthlaut had protested splitting
his troops, was allowed to change his testimony over a crucial detail — whether
he had reported Uthlaut’s
dissent to a higher ranking commander. In initial questioning, Saunders said he
had done so, but when that apparently was contradicted by that commander’s
testimony, Saunders was threatened with perjury charges. He was given immunity
and allowed to change his prior testimony.
The regiment’s commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey, was promoted to colonel
two months after the incident, and Saunders, who a source said received a
reprimand, later was given authority to determine the punishment of those below
him. He gave administrative
reprimands to six soldiers, including Uthlaut, who had been seriously wounded
in the face by shrapnel in the incident. Uthlaut — who was first captain of his
senior class at West Point, the academy’s highest honor — was dismissed from
the Rangers and re-entered
the regular Army.
“It seems grossly inappropriate that Saunders would determine punishment
for the others when he shares responsibility for the debacle,” Mary Tillman
said.
Baer told The Chronicle that commanding officers were to blame for the
friendly fire because they split the platoon and ordered it to leave a secure
location in favor of a region known as a Taliban stronghold.
“It was dumb to send us out during daylight,” said Baer, who was honorably
discharged from the Rangers earlier this year and lives in the East Bay.
“It’s a well-known military doctrine that privates first learn going
through basic training — if you are in enemy territory and you are stopped for
a prolonged period of time, the best thing to do is to wait until nightfall.
Why they thought that moving us
out in broad daylight from our position, dragging a busted humvee slowly
through a known hotspot after we had been stranded there all day was a good
idea will forever elude me. Who made that decision? Bailey? Saunders? That’s
what I want to know.”
— Inaccurate information. While the military code gives clear guidance for
informing family members upon a soldier’s death when cases are suspected of
being a result of friendly fire, that procedure was not followed in the Tillman
case. After Tillman’s
death, the Army gave conflicting and incorrect descriptions of the events.
On April 22, the family was told that Tillman was hit with enemy fire
getting out of
a vehicle and died an hour later at a field hospital.
Although there was ample testimony that Tillman died immediately, an Army
report — dated April 22, 2004, from the field hospital in Salerno, Afghanistan,
where his body was taken — suggested otherwise. While it stated that he had no
blood pressure or pulse
“on arrival,” it stated that cardio pulmonary resuscitation had been conducted
and that
he was transferred to the intensive care unit for further CPR.
On April 23, all top Ranger commanders were told of the suspected
fratricide. That same day, an Army press release said he was killed “when his
patrol vehicle came under attack.”
On April 29, four days before Tillman’s memorial, Gen. John Abizaid, chief
of U.S. Central Command, and other top commanders were told of the fratricide.
It is not known if Abizaid reported the news to Washington. Mary Tillman
believes that with her son’s
high profile, and the fact that Rumsfeld sent him a personal letter, the word
quickly reached the defense secretary. “If Pat was on Rumsfeld’s radar, it’s
pretty likely that
he would have been informed right away after he was killed,” she said. White
House, Pentagon and Army spokesmen all said they had no information on when
Bush or Rumsfeld
were informed.
On April 30, the Army awarded Tillman a Silver Star medal for bravery,
saying that “through the firing Tillman’s voice was heard issuing fire commands
to take the fight to the enemy on the dominating high ground.”
On May 2, the acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee was told of the
fratricide.
On May 7, the Army’s official casualty report stated incorrectly that
Tillman was killed by “enemy forces” and “died in a medical treatment
facility.”
On May 28, the Army finally admitted to Tillman’s family that he had been
killed by friendly fire.
“The administration clearly was using this case for its own political
reasons,” said the father, Patrick Tillman. “This cover-up started within
minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something
that (lower-ranking) people in the field do,” he said.
The files show that many of the soldiers questioned in the inquiry said it
was common knowledge that the incident involved friendly fire.
A soldier who on April 23 burned Tillman’s bullet riddled body armor —
which would have been evidence in a friendly-fire investigation — testified
that he did so because there was no doubt it was friendly fire that killed
Tillman. Two days later, Tillman’s uniform and vest also were burned because
they were soaked in blood and considered a biohazard. Tillman’s uniform also
was burned.
The officer who led the first investigation testified that when he was
given responsibility for the probe the morning after Tillman’s death, he was
informed that the cause was “potential fratricide.’’
After they received the friendly-fire notification May 28, the Tillmans
began a
public campaign seeking more information. But it was only when the Tillmans
began angrily accusing the Pentagon of a coverup, in June 2005, that the Army
apologized for the
delay, issuing a statement blaming “procedural misjudgments and mistakes.”
— Legal liability. In testimony on Nov. 14, the officer who conducted the
first investigation said that he thought some Rangers could have been charged
with “criminal intent,” and that some Rangers committed “gross negligence.” The
legal difference between the two terms is roughly similar to the distinction
between murder and involuntary manslaughter.
The Tillmans demand that all avenues of inquiry remain open.
“I want to know what kind of criminal intent there was,” Mary Tillman said.
“There’s so much in the reports that is (deleted) that it’s hard to tell what
we’re not seeing.”
In Congress, pressure is building for a full public disclosure of what
happened. “I
am committed to continuing my work with the Tillman family to ensure that their
concerns are being addressed,” said Rep. Honda. He added that he expects the
investigation
to do the following: “1) provide all factual evidence about the events of April
22, 2004;
2) identify the command decisions that contributed to Pat Tillman’s death; 3)
explain why the Army took so long to reveal fratricide as the cause of Pat
Tillman’s death; and 4) offer all necessary recommendations for improved
procedures relating to such incidents.”
Patrick Tillman drily called the new Army probe “the latest, greatest
investigation.” He added, “In Washington, I don’t think any of them want it
investigated. They
(politicians and Army officials) just don’t want to see it ended with them,
landing on their desk so they get blamed for the cover-up.” The January 2005
investigation concluded that there was no coverup.
Throughout the controversy, the Tillman family has been reluctant to cause
a media stir. Mary noted that Pat shunned publicity, refusing all public
comment when he enlisted and asking the Army to reject all media requests for
interviews while he was in service.
Pat’s widow, Marie, and his brother Kevin have not become publicly involved in
the case, and they declined to comment for this article.
Yet other Tillman family members are less reluctant to show Tillman’s
unique character, which was more complex than the public image of a gung-ho
patriotic warrior.
He started keeping a journal at 16 and continued the practice on the
battlefield, writing
in it regularly. (His journal was lost immediately after his death.) Mary
Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky,
the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting
prevented by his death. She said
that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept.
11
attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”
Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan,
told one anecdote that took place during the March 2003 invasion as the Rangers
moved up through southern Iraq.
“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city
in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an
old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were
talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said,
‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”
Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat
urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen.
John Kerry.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Stephen White — a Navy SEAL who served with Pat
and Kevin for four months in Iraq and was the only military member to speak at
Tillman’s memorial — said Pat “wasn’t very fired up about being in Iraq” and
instead wanted to go fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He said both Pat and Kevin
(who has a degree in philosophy) “were amazingly well-read individuals … very
firm in some of their beliefs, their political
and religious or not so religious beliefs.”
Baer recalled that Tillman encouraged him in his ambitions as an amateur
poet. “I would read him my poems, and we would talk about them,” Baer said. “He
helped me grow as an individual.”
Tillman subscribed to the Economist magazine, and a fellow soldier said
Tillman
created a makeshift base library of classic novels so his platoon mates would
have literature to read in their down time. He even brought gourmet coffee to
brew for his platoon in the field in Afghanistan.
Baer said Tillman was popular among his fellow soldiers and had no enemies.
“The guys who killed Pat were his biggest fans,” he said. “They were really
wrecked afterward.” He called Tillman “this amazing positive force who really
brought our whole platoon together.
He had this great energy. Everybody loved him.” His former comrades and
family recall Tillman as a born leader yet remarkably humble. White, the Navy
SEAL, recalls one day
when “some 19-year-old Ranger came and ordered him to cut an acre of grass.
And Pat just did it, he cut that grass, he didn’t complain. He could have
taken millions of dollars playing football, but instead he was just taking
orders like that.”
Mary Tillman says that’s how Pat would have wanted to be remembered, as an
individual, not as a stock figure or political prop. But she also believes “Pat
was a real hero, not what they used him as.”
For the moment, all that
is left are the memories and the thick binders spread across Mary Tillman’s
dining room table in San Jose. As she waits for the Pentagon investigators to
finish their new probe, she wonders whether they will ask the hard questions.
Like other family members, “I just want accountability,” she said. “I want
answers.”
‘IT’S HARD TO KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE’
That’s the lament of Mary Tillman, above, a teacher of special education
in a San
Jose public school. She has long pressed the Army to reopen its investigation
into
the friendly-fire killing of her son, Pat Tillman, in a canyon in Afghanistan
on April 22, . The persistence of Mary Tillman and her former husband, Patrick
Tillman, was rewarded when the Pentagon’s inspector general opened a new
inquiry in August, the fourth such probe. Mary Tillman says she hopes questions
created by discrepancies in past testimony will finally be answered.
STORY CHANGES OVER TIME
An officer in Pat Tillman’s Ranger battalion who directed the first
investigation into the soldier’s death served as a witness on Nov. 14, 2004, in
the third investigation, which was led by Brig. Gen. Gary Jones. The first
investigator complained that the officers in charge of the second invest-
igation had allowed Rangers involved in the shooting to change their
testimony.
THREAT OF PERJURY CHARGES
An excerpt from a March 3, 2005, memorandum by
Brig. Gen. Gary Jones describes how Capt. William Saunders, the commander
of Pat Tillman’s Ranger company, was threatened with perjury charges. Jones’
memo said Saunders made false claims that he had informed his superiors that
platoon commander Lt. David Uthlaut had protested orders given to him leading
up to the incident. Despite this threat, Saunders was allowed to change his
testimony and was granted immunity.
Twenty soldiers deployed to
Iraq from the army base here were killed in May, a monthly high. That
same month, the base announced a change in how it would honor its dead:
instead of units holding services as casualties occurred, they would be
held collectively once a month.
The anger and hurt were immediate. Soldiers’ families and veterans
protested the change as cold and logistics-driven. Critics online said
the military was trying to repress bad news about deaths. By mid-June,
the base had put the plan on hold, and its commander, Lieutenant
General Charles Jacoby, was expected to decide this week whether to go
through with it.
“If I lost my husband at the beginning of the month, what do you do,
wait until the end of the month?” asked Toni Shanyfelt, who said her
husband was serving one of multiple tours in Iraq. “I don’t know if
it’s more convenient for them, or what, but that’s insane.”
Military historians and scholars say the proposal and its fallout
highlight the tender questions facing the armed forces as casualties in
Iraq and Afghanistan mount, and some soldiers and their families come
to expect more from military bases than in past conflicts.
In Vietnam and Korea, the historians say, many bases were places for
training soldiers and shipping them out, rarely to see them return,
with memorial services uncommon. Now, in the age of the all-volunteer
force, the base has become the center of community. The army and other
branches have fostered the idea that military service is as much about
education, job training and belonging to a community as national
defense.
“It wasn’t considered the army’s business in any of the other wars
to conduct these services,” said Alan Archambault, director of the Fort
Lewis Military Museum, which is supported by the army. “It was the
home- towns of the soldiers that died that had these. Now I think the
army bases are trying to be the hometowns.”
Army officials said the idea to hold monthly services reflected a
need to find balance between honoring the dead and the practical
reality that the services take time to plan, including things like
coordinating rifle salutes and arranging receptions for family members
who attend.
“As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with
the number of soldiers we now have in harm’s way, our losses will
preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies,”
Brigadier General William Troy, who was the interim commander at Fort
Lewis at the time, wrote in an e-mail message announcing the policy in
May.
The army also emphasizes that the ceremonies held on bases are in
addition to those held by the soldier’s unit overseas as well as
private family services, which usually include a military honor guard.
Those services would not be affected if Fort Lewis moved to a monthly
schedule.
Fort Lewis, the third-largest army base in the nation, has about
10,000 of its 28,000 soldiers deployed overseas, the majority of them
in Stryker brigades trained specially for urban combat. Several other
major bases, including Fort Hood in Texas, the largest, already hold
services monthly. Some hold them even less frequently.
“There is no armywide policy to have any memorial services,” a
spokeswoman for the army, Major Cheryl Phillips, said in an e-mail
message. “Commanders make the call. Several installations have
conducted services for each individual soldier and now have begun to
roll them into a quarterly service because, alas, the casualty numbers
are rising.”
At many bases, local elected officials attend the services. At Fort
Hood, whose 1st Cavalry Division has 19,000 soldiers overseas, many of
these officials are veterans with ties to the base or the army.
“It really is important that we keep it scheduled and that these
people all have it on their calendars,” said a spokeswoman for Fort
Hood, Diane Battaglia.
Battaglia said the monthly services helped bring families together, a point also made by Troy at Fort Lewis.
“I see this as a way of sharing the heavy burdens our spouses and
rear detachments bear, while giving our fallen warriors the respect
they deserve,” Troy wrote in the e-mail message. “It will also give the
families of the fallen the opportunity to bond with one another, as
they see others who share their grief.”
Battaglia said the Fort Hood soldiers received individual eulogies
at the monthly services. “It has worked phenomenally well,” she said.
At Fort Lewis, however, tension has been evident; changing a ritual,
especially as the death toll is rising, strikes some as disrespectful.
“By reducing it to once a month, I think they’re taking away from
us,” said Staff Sergeant Jason Angelle. “Soldiers deserve individual
honors.”
Sue Rothwell, who runs a diner popular among soldiers that is just
outside the main gate, said she had long opposed the war in Iraq but
had recently made a public point of honoring those who serve in it.
Several weeks ago she started putting the last names of soldiers who
had died on the reader board outside the restaurant, called Galloping
Gertie’s, under the heading, “The numbers have names.”
Rothwell said she opposed monthly services. “Individuals gave their
lives,” she said. “But if you have services just once a month, the
other 29 days you don’t have to think about it. Well, isn’t that
convenient.”
For now, at least, those who die are eulogized as hometown heroes, either individually or by division.
“We owe them the highest gratitude a nation can give,” Lieutenant
Colonel John Pettit, a chaplain, said at a memorial service this month
for two soldiers. Sergeant Joel Dahl and Corporal Victor Garcia were
killed by small arms fire in Iraq.
We
just got off the phone with Tracy Schmaler, a spokesperson for the
Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democratic majority. Schmaler told us it
is her understanding that — despite President Bush’s invocation of
executive privilege in regards to the testimony of former White House
staffers Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers about the ongoing U.S. Attorneys scandal — Taylor will still appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Schmaler says she learned that from Taylor’s lawyer, W. Neil Eggleston,
earlier Monday afternoon. When called for confirmation by Salon,
Eggleston was unavailable. He has not yet returned a message left
seeking comment.
As for Miers, the question of whether she will appear as scheduled
before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday is apparently still up in
the air. A spokesperson for the committee told Salon that the committee
had not yet heard anything definitive about whether Miers would appear,
and her lawyer was unavailable for comment.
The
Moondance Diner—Soho landmark, employer of Jonathan Larson and
Spiderman’s girlfriend, last free-standing diner in
Manhattan—finally closed on July 1, following months of press
coverage about its imminent demise.
Condo builders, rejoice! You have triumphed again.
According
to Metro, the structure won’t be scrapped but shipped to a museum in
the Keystone State. So we can visit it. But it doesn’t sound like you
could get cheese fries in a museum diner.
Manager Billy Genat
said something fascinatingly peculiar: “You can see the sun through
these windows now, but you won’t be able to see the sun anymore
when the condos come. It will look like the triangle of the devil.”
Triangle of the Devil. Right now it’s called Avenue of the Americas. Think City Hall will approve a street name change?
The Moondance Diner—Soho landmark, employer of Jonathan Larson and Spiderman’s girlfriend, last free-standing diner in Manhattan—finally closed on July 1, following months of press coverage about its imminent demise.
Condo builders, rejoice! You have triumphed again.
According to Metro, the structure won’t be scrapped but shipped to a museum in the Keystone State. So we can visit it. But it doesn’t sound like you could get cheese fries in a museum diner.
Manager Billy Genat said something fascinatingly peculiar: “You can see the sun through these windows now, but you won’t be able to see the sun anymore when the condos come. It will look like the triangle of the devil.”
Triangle of the Devil. Right now it’s called Avenue of the Americas. Think City Hall will approve a street name change?
The New York Herald Sun 