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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! February 11, 2005 Check SixBy GreyhawkA report from Colorado: GJ soldier dies trying to save girlDonations were accepted on behalf of the bereaved. The story above is from the Google cache of the Grand Junction Sentinal's coverage of the event - the actual page is no longer available. Why? Because virtually every word of it was a lie. GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado (AP) -- A woman concocted a heartbreaking story of how her soldier husband died a hero in Iraq -- and then admitted the story was all a hoax. The touching story of how Spc. Jonathan Kenney took a bullet meant for an Iraqi child on January 29 was reported by a score of Colorado media after a news release was sent to them by the nonprofit group Homefront Heroes.More details, none of them are good. Sarah Kenney, the woman behind the tale of an imaginary soldier killed in Iraq, said she just wants it to all be over.Husband and wife both emphatically agree that they weren't motivated by money. When asked if she had received any monetary compensation from the story or had hoped to, Sarah Kenney said no.More details on the fictitious Jonathan and Amber Kenney from Denver TV: The Kenneys were said to have purchased a home near Grand Junction, after meeting at a church in Denver. It was reported that they would have celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary on Valentine's Day.GI's "shot in the heart" through armor and "honorable discharges" for a spouse issued in a matter of hours after an event like this are just two of the more obvious questions that should have been raised in the original story. But the number of even more easily verifiable claims (place of employment, names of individuals) that weren't verified is astounding. Given the extremely poor record for fact checking often displayed by the media these days it's surprising that even more people don't take similar advantage of reporters eager to "get a story". Posted by Greyhawk / February 11, 2005 1:22 PM | Permalink 3 TrackBacksGreyhawk atMudville Gazette has a post about a woman whose lie about a soldier allegedly killed in Iraq which turned out to be a huge lie. Read it and then ponder Greyhawk's questions about how this story seems to have gotten throught the media unche... Read More I started feeling tears well up in my eyes as I read this story. And then I let out a long, deliberate ho...ly...crap when I got to the punchline.... Read More This story is a complete fraud, one that was used to collect donations from the community. There are two details in the quoted passage that should have raised questions for any journalist who knew anything about the military... Read More 11 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
More proof of how much we the people need you bloggers to counter the media and keep them "honest". I feel bad for the people at Homefront Heroes who wanted to help someone. I hope they have learned something here.
This is the kind of thing that really gives irony to the "Bloggers aren't journalists, they don't check facts..." crap we keep hearing.
As a second note - this lady is just plain sick in the head. Sounds like a variation of the Munchausen's (sp?) syndrome, where people claim illnesses to get attention.
Similar to a story from this area (metro boston) a few years ago. A young woman shaved her head , claimed she had cancer and took the money from the fundraisers to buy a new car and breast implants. She's in jail now.
Ick
So that explains the thought I had while reading the story--how in the world did he get shot in the heart? Even the old flak jacket I humped around many years ago would have prevented that from happening.
This is why so many people claim to be 'seals', Rangers, or Green Beanies, no one fact checks their dumb stories.
I had the same thought, Rex, but figured there may have been some reason he wasn't wearing body armor. What that would be, I couldn't guess.
So maybe you're not really Greyhawk....not really a GI....not really in Iraq....not really my brother.....
What do you mean thank goodness for the bloggers? Everything in the story above was lifted from pages of straight newspapers.
Give me a break.
HONESTLY- Let’s be frank. That f-ing bitch Sarah is a despicable hog. Obviously the he/she knew right from wrong and choose its own pathetic path in life to take. It doesn't deserve any sympathy. It has no character, honor, or credibility. It is a habitual liar, a self loather, glutton, grotesque hog who is beneath professional help of any kind. It has no concise and lacks virtue. It should be neutered or spayed. Let’s just pity the freaks’ child because its mother/father is a genetic mistake who obviously despises herself and those who sacrifice their lives for the sovereignty in the United States of America.
HONESTLY- This type of morally weak loser is exactly what our enemies hope for.
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