Without knowing the purpose or the intended audience I'm not even going to venture an opinion. For all I know the 'dead guy' pulled a bonehead move that might have gotten him or some other service-member killed and this is one way of making it memorable.
Who can say?
I've done several perspective articles in the hopes of re-caging the mental gyros of those Americans whose thinking has jumped the tracks.
As a vet, I freely offer that various shenanigans like what befell the 37th Training Group at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, occurred quite often. It was almost always a combination of tension relief and esprit de corps, people coming together to do something unique and different, without meaning any harm, and never inteded for public release, beyond immediate family and friends, all of whom understand the rigors of military service, the comraderie that accompanies it, and the steam that our high-pressured folks tend to blow off from time to time. Sometimes it was done in good taste. Occasionally, not so much. All in all, however, we took it as it was, and took it in stride, for esprit de corps, but never failing to use the "not so much" responses as a means of helping polish those folks with tons of exuberance but somewhat lacking in discretion.
Do folks sometimes cross the line in their exuberance? Yes, they do. In this case, someone erred by sending a picture to the media. Folks - The Air Force Times is NOT the Air Force. It's a media-publication that's won a contract to report on various Air Force-related events. They themselves say so, right here:
http://www.airforcetimes.com/about/
Now, if they deserved their "trusted" claim, they'd have yanked this story in a heartbeat. They did not. They ran it, and ran all the way to the bank with the money it's notoriety is generating with respect to their advertising revenue.
After twenty years of military service, I find that most of the harm coming from this particular incident has been invented by the media and sprayed onto an unsuspecting public for no other purpose than generating adverti$ing revenue$ by people horrified by the media portrayals.
So please, public - step back, take a deep breath, and remember the media do not control you. You can think for yourselves, and I humbly ask that you please do so.
The media could care less about the hopes, aspirations, and lives of the relative innocents involved. They ignore the fact that corporate culture is much the same as are fraternity events, and just about every segment of life all the way down to the Jackass movie trilogy, and while I'm putting you in your place, Johnny Knoxville, I do mean my admiration for your ability to kick-start a guffaw into a grin from the most ornery person as a complement. Like many others, however, I came close to blowing grits at your last movie
My point is one of perspective. We live in a society which avidly endorses all genre of movies, including those shown on base, then we react in horror when folks emulate the tiniest semblance of what they've seen.
Really? Has the word "hypocrite" been expunged from our dictionaries?
The media just wants to bolster up sagging profits, made even worse as Americans are wising up to the fact that the media left "news integrity" in the profit dumpster years ago. They've done a good job of keeping up with a pretence of integrity, but their decisions are about money, not reality.
Speaking as one who, as a 1st Lt rode his commanding officer's 1,300 cc Harley through the Officer's Club for our base-wide "50's Night" (with both his and the club manager's previously obtained consent, of course), I can't help but think these poor souls, just blowing off some steam, are going to wind up being behind the eightball as commanders many levels above them revert to "saving face" instead of telling the media what they need to hear right about now in America's fight to regain the roots of her Godly heritage: "Go to hell. They were just blowing off steam."
Please stand behind your people, commanders. Mine did throughout my career. Well, mostly. When, in the last months they bent to political pressure, my compatriates stood beside me and won the day in their stead.
Our media knows it, but they're ignoring it because their profits are more important than these people's lives, hopes, aspirations, and very hard work while enduring the rigors of combat.
Speaking of which, members of the media - you're over 17... Care to join up?"
Anyone? Anyone?
Bueller?
