The Rant of an Army Wife

Some journalists are just dumb.
First a short story that I saw in a magazine last night. I saw a little blurb about how eating dark chocolate, DARK chocolate, is good for your health. Not milk chocolate, dark. It went on to recommend that you not binge on chocolate daily, but that a few hershey kisses here and there might be good for you. Just ponder that one for a minute. Feel free to tell me if I missed some major announcement from Hershey's in the past few months about a change in the recipe.
Now, that one was merely amusing. Silly people who know nothing about chocolate shouldn't write little stories on it. Especially when they've been reporting that dark chocolate is good for you for YEARS now. But this next one truly gets under my skin. I mean, i'm not all up in arms over it, but it bugs me. First, lets review the facts - my husband is a soldier. More specifically, he's a Human Resources Specialist in the Army. And he's currently in Iraq. And has a big machine gun with him 24/7. Okay, on with the story.
On the front of my October 3rd issue of Army Times, I spot an interesting headline: "Don't Call 'Em Fobbits How 8 Admin Soldiers Earned Combat Badges." I think, surely, its a story of some extraordinary battle. Combat in general gets you a badge, but they generally only write stories about the ones that are special in some way. I've just searched for definions of "fobbit." The best I can find is this - some say that anyone on a FOB is a Fobbit. And a FOB is a Forward Operating Base. Basically, the military bases in Iraq, they're FOB's. But it seems the more accurate definion, especially in this case, for fobbit, is a person who never leaves the FOB. They don't do patrols, they don't go out on missions, they just hang out there on the FOB, unless they are going to another FOB for some reason.
So, now lets turn to page 20, to read what must be quite the harrowing tale of some admin soldiers who did something amazing...
Intro line: "Team returned fire when attacked in Iraq." Hmm, sounds interesting, they could have picked a better headline, but oh well, we won't get upset over their lack of creativity. Now, the first paragraph: "You might call them weenies and fobbits, but dont shoot at the human resources specialists. They're trained to shoot back - and do." This is where I pause from reading and reply to the article, "No way! You're asking me to believe that my husband is actually a, a, soldier? Like, a REAL one? Man, I thought those guns were just for show!" I need an eye-rolly emote here.
It goes on to tell the tale. Yeah, this one Battalion's convoy was attacked and they actually had the balls to shoot back. Imagine that. What exactly do people think they'd do? Run out with their arms waving, yelling "no, wait, you don't understand, we're just admin guys! No need to shoot us! Tell ya what though, there's an infantry battalion that will be getting here in a couple of hours. You all have a nice day!"
There was absolutely nothing unusual or interesting about this story. Its just that the idea that some soldiers who happen to have "desk jobs" actually fought back, is apparently jaw-dropping news to some people.
The only part of the article that didn't annoy me was the closing remarks, a mix of quotes and paraphrase from Sgt 1st Class Rose Prosper: "...admin soldiers, no matter what other soldiers think of them, are just as vulnerable as anyone else on duty in Iraq. 'They [the enemy] don't know what our MOS is when they attack. I was proud knowing my team had the right training,' she said. 'they did what they had to do.'" Of course they did. Because first and foremost, they are soldiers. They went through basic training just like everyone else, and they do regular weapons training just like everyone else. And if they're in Iraq, they'll be shot at just like everyone else. It just bugs me that admin soldiers daring to fight back is actually considered newsworthy. And it might be different if it was in a newspaper that the general public gets. But is the freakin Army Times.