Don't think..be a dumb ass...

[lasvegasreb]

You can read Sally Jenkins column on Tillman if you want, front page of washingtonpost.com but I found it distasteful that she used Wilfred Owen of all people to talk about the values Tillman stood for. Quite frankly, if you know anything about Owen, you'd know he's the antithesis of everything Tillman stood for.

So I told her so:

Sally,

I think it was fairly disingenuous and probably intellectually incorrect to use Wilfred Owen to write about the themes of patriotism and honor that represented Pat Tillman's life. Here was a guy in Owen who's been an inspiration for subversive and anti-war individuals everywhere, who wrote Dulce Decorum est Pro Patria Mori: The Old Lie no less, and he shows up repeatedly in a column about Pat Tillman? The quote that you used fits your purpose, but in no way is indicative of what Owen was WRITING before he died. Perhaps Owen was a war junkie; there's no sign that Tillman, on the other hand, joined just to kill people.

Everything Tillman believed is everything Owen was against.

Why did you and your editors assume their readership wouldn't know this?

Thanks for your time.

Benjamin

And her response:

Hi,

I can't quite tell from your email what it is you think you know, as a reader, or what it is you think my purpose was in writing about Tillman.

The column certainly wasn't about patriotism. It was about selflessness and service in the face of thanklessness and horror. Which Owen wrote about probably better than anyone.

It's pretty simple. Try shrugging off your crushing blanket of intellectualism and read the thing straight on.

Be a dumb ass...Read the Post "straight on"...W has found a newspaper!...screw you guys, I'm going home...have a great weekend everybody..

[Moe_Szyslak]

Tillman was a great hero.

Owen's views, given the horrors he saw, resonate with most vets I know - may well have with Tillman as he died - and can't be easily dismissed.

Sally can flat out write - and she appears to be a chip off the old block.

Hope you have a good weekend, reb.

Moe

[kah2523]

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.