NYT Writes Right On This One

With fear and a sour feeling, I started reading today's NYTimes piece on Katherine Jordan, a 19-year-old Lyndon, Kansas high school grad and Army private who's about to get shipped out to Iraq, to serve as a mechanic in a Big Red One supply unit.

The headline, Iraq Looms Close For Private Recruited In Wartime, didn't bode well. Would they write about overzealous recruiting?

The first sentence, "When she signed up for the Army in 2004, Katherine Jordan had little to say about war," seemed to signal that Katherine would be portrayed as too dumb to find any other job.

And there is a bit of both ... a recruiter who told them the fighting maybe would be setting down by they time she got out of Basic, the three girlfriends who all went to college ... but all in all, it was a (hold on to your hat) patriotic portrayal of a young person going to war. It is a good read, and really good to see in the NYT.

Katherine is portrayed as an adventurer and her girlfriends as homebodies. She is quoted looking forward to doing something more important than she'd ever do in Lyndon, and her parents are portrayed as concerned (of course), but proud.

Now, if the NYT's reporters in Iraq could just get out of their hotels and report more often on the good work and bravery of our troops, we'd really have some good reporting.

h/t memeorandum