To the Editor:

This letter pertains to the Sept. 25 article on censorship and the military.

The military restricts its information for good reason. Allowing reporters to “be informed of battle plans and entrusted to withhold information from the public until better judgement would deem it to be released” is absolutely absurd. Bottom of the line: it jeopardizes lives.

Take for example the mission that a Navy SEAL team was supposed to carry out during Operation Desert Storm. The SEALs landed on a beach and found a team of reporters that had caught wind of the operation. Being early morning, the camera lights lit up the entire beach, exposing the SEALs and their position to any enemy recon elements or snipers.

Had the Iraqis been a decent military, they would have called in their artillery and destroyed not only a team of SEALs, but a team of reporters as well. Incidently, the mission was aborted due to the fact that the reporters had compromised the position of the SEAL team.

Another example can be taken from Desert Storm. When a group of retired generals told the American public that they expected General Schwartzkopf to have some Marines land on a beach, the Iraqi intelligence officers (who get most of their information from OUR MEDIA) used that information to plan their defensive.

Fortunately, General Schwartzkopf had enough foresight to see this dilemma, and used different tactics. Had the Marines landed as planned, the casualty list of Operation Desert Storm would have been much longer.

In conclusion, the media receives enough (sometimes too much) military information as it is. Jeopardizing the lives of American soldiers is not worth getting a good story. As I stated before, the reporters should be allowed to report on military events after-the-fact, with full cooperation from the military.

John P. McFarland, PFC US

Freshman

History