PFC. LYNCH, CONT'D
I have to say that I was surprised at the almost universally positive reaction to my posting last week about reporters first-naming Pfc. Jessica Lynch. A sampling of the reader mail:
From John Holton:
I think that the media have yet to realize that the enlisted people in the military are not conscripts, but there of their own free will, and that as such they're entitled to the same respect shown to the officers. I find it interesting that the retired officers that now act as commentators on Fox News and CNN are called "General So-and-so", whereas the same news organizations find it perfectly acceptable to refer to PFC Lynch as "Jessica". Maybe it's a carryover from Vietnam, where the enlisted forces were generally conscripts and not military professionals. One of the best things I've seen on early morning TV was on the "Today" show, when Matt Lauer was on board an aircraft carrier during the Afghanistan conflict. He was interviewing the woman who was in charge of the galleys, a Master Chief Petty Officer, and asked her if he could call her by her first name (I think it was Betty, but I'm not sure). She very pleasantly told him, "No. Please call me Master Chief." The look on his face was priceless.
From Scott Shields:
I just found your running commentary on the "Private Lynch" vs. "Jessica" thing via Howard Kurtz and the Washington Post. I'm so glad someone is bringing this up! The Diego Rincon case is interesting juxtaposition in terms of media fairness, but there's another side to it all. I was so annoyed when I read this in the Washington Post a few days ago:
"Talk about spunk!" said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), whom military officials had briefed on the rescue.
At first, I couldn't really figure out why this bothered me. It seemed maybe that the comment didn't really fit the weight of the situation. And then I realized that it was the use of the word "spunk". That's a word you use to describe a high school cheerleader who stands up for the school nerd - not a rescued Prisoner of War.
Would you say that John McCain had "spunk"? How about "moxie"? I prefer words like "dedication", "bravery", or even "guts".
From Rod McFadden, Captain, USNR (for i.d. purposes only):
Thank you for making the "Jessica" point. Our Soldier, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen who happen to be women deserve the same public courtesy everyone else does.
It's a bit of a myth to call any baby-faced 19-year-old "Pfc.," regardless of sex. And it's an all-American trait to call people by their first names. (Everyone calls me Virginia, and I don't think that's only because nobody knows how to pronounce Postrel.) But the military is a guardian institution to whose members we owe the courtesy of acknowledging their status and their rank. (In addition to my Reason editorial on Jane Jacobs's ideas of guardian-vs.-commercial ethics, another related piece is here.)