More on Kosovo

We, in the military, are accustomed to taking everything the media says with a grain of salt. We're accustomed to being used to further political agendas on both sides of the aisle and facts being twisted to suit said prejudices. On the heels of a recent article written by Julia Gorin for the American Legion magazine and our comprehensive reply to the distortions presented in this missive, Brad and I examined a series of letters written by a KFOR Soldier to Julia Gorin and published in Front Page magazine, which appear to support her contentions. And Front Page magazine has promised to print more as they come.

Following is the next letter in a series of emails that Front Page will be publishing from an American soldier [sic.] in Kosovo

But, as always, there are two sides to every story.

The Battalion Commander of the Soldier in question had a conversation with the troop upon seeing this letter. According to the conversation account, the Soldier is currently in combat stress counseling - not because of anything he has encountered here, but because of problems back home. "I believe he's a good troop," writes the Battalion Commander, "but was manipulated by Gorin while he is under tremendous amount of stress due to personal tragedy at home."

Further, he writes, "During my discussion with him, I told him that since he feels so threaten and unsafe in Kosovo that I am going to reassign him to a safer job inside the wire for his own safety concern."

The Soldier's reply was a resounding, NO! "Please do not do that sir," he replied, "I do want to go out and patrol with my squad, I know this sounds contradicting [sic.] from my conversation with Ms Gorin," he further admitted.

The Soldier also admitted he knew of no U.S. Soldiers killed in Kosovo on our rotation. He further conceded that he knew of no Serbs who were hurt in our area of operations, nor any that have been denied freedom of movement. He told his commander that he had not realized Ms. Gorin was going to "take everything he said seriously and 'word for word'."

Some of the younger Soldiers do not understand the repercussions of what they say in moments of vulnerability to the more predatory members of the press. And they certainly don't realize how their words can be used against them, especially by pundits who have an obvious political agenda. There are a number of problems with sending these types of letters to people like Gorin.

First, there are a number of (Operational Security) OPSEC issues with publishing these letters, which are a violation in and of themselves, and can possibly endanger the lives of this Soldier's fellow troops. I doubt the Soldier in question intentionally meant to violate OPSEC, but this is exactly what he did, giving Gorin ammunition to further cause harm to our mission.

Second, this Soldier purports to speak for other KFOR troops when he claims "At this point, the majority of the soldiers [sic.] don't trust the Albanians." The problem with young troops who do not understand how to talk to the media is their failure to realize that nothing is "off the record" and everything they say can be taken literally. This Soldier may have been comfortable speaking for himself and his friends with whom he has discussed his views, but what he is doing is attributing his feelings to other members of KFOR who may disagree with his assessment, again giving Gorin ammunition to twist the facts of our mission.

And third, he's quite obviously angry and embittered. According to the Soldier's conversation with his Battalion Commander, his grandfather, who raised him, has recently passed, his father is in jail, and he grew up in a pretty "screwed up environment." The Soldier has held these feelings of anger and frustration inside, and had not shared them with anyone who could help, choosing instead to confide in a stranger on the other end of the internet - a stranger with a strong political agenda and lack of caring for the Soldiers who defend her right to spew propaganda at their expense. "At the end of our conversation," reports the Battalion Commander, "I encouraged him to see a counselor and share his feelings with his chain-of-command and not hold it to himself. He agrees, and is under counseling at this time."

We're not excusing this Soldier's behavior and his quite obvious violation of Operational Security. We are, however, also impugning the motives of Ms. Gorin, as well as her methods. Journalism comes with certain responsibilities. By publishing letters that are quite obviously problematic from an operational security standpoint, Gorin shirks that responsibility. She quite obviously gave no thought to the possible consequences of publishing sensitive information, and neither did Front Page magazine. In her zeal to impugn our mission in Kosovo, Gorin used an angry, stressed, frustrated Soldier's words to prop her agenda without any consideration to the facts he may have been omitting in his anger, and the 1500 National Guardsmen, Active Duty Soldiers and Reservists who are here -- away from their lives, jobs and loved ones -- doing what, at times, seems like a thankless job.

Much like the New York Times reporter who reported on the weaknesses in our body armor for all the terrorists in the world to read and exploit, merely because he could, and because it supported his twisted agenda, Gorin took the words of a frustrated, angry Soldier and used them to support her political stance. Merely because she could. We're disappointed in her and in Front Page magazine for holding their agenda as more important than the troops who are sworn to protect their freedom to promote it.

UPDATE: Ms. Gorin is quite the liar. Her latest blog entry says the following:

I was just about to publish the third letter from an American soldier in Kosovo when the military command discovered his correspondences with me and now he’s in deep doo-doo because our government doesn’t want you to know what’s going on in Kosovo. But the following excerpt from said letter is relevant here:

If these people are ready for independence, how come they don’t clean up their streets, towns, and cities, and remove the trash that has been sitting on the curb for several weeks to several months (the smell is getting to me)?…A lot of us feel like the Albanians here don’t really care nor give a crap about this place by the way they treat their countryside. Trash, filth — driving out into sector is a plethora of pungent aromas from burning trash, sewage, and God only knows what else. I suppose that’s because they really don’t know if this land will be theirs or go back to Serbia, but still. It doesn’t look good for them to want independence yet do nothing to clean up their community. Granted they are still very poor and don’t have the services we’re used to at home, garbage disposal, a good public health department to ensure that the living conditions are up to par, it still doesn’t give them the reason to just say “screw it”.

Interesting. No one has said this Soldier was in any kind of trouble at all. Did they? Nope. He's getting help from a counselor for his personal issues, but nothing has been said about "deep doo-doo." Hmmmm. Oh yes, there are OPSEC violations in his letters, but as far as I know, talking with your Battalion Commander does not constitute "deep doo-doo." Here's your prime example of how this woman twists the facts to suit her own agenda. Nice, eh?

ADDED IN RETROSPECT: I have to laugh... this woman doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to admit her mistakes. She doesn't have the guts to reply to anything that is posted here or on Brad's blog. She simply fabricates stories and claims "government conspiracy" as an explanation for her lies.

Here's your tinfoil hat, Julia. You've earned it.