Disappointed

I realize that sensational news sells, and that death sells in the media. I can understand that a story about a middle eastern city in which there are American troops stationed rioting and some of those rioters dying is a story. What I can't understand is why the media hates the US military so much.

I say this because there was an incident today in the city of Jalalabad where there was reports of American military personnel firing (according to some news agencies) into the crowds and according to others firing into the air and the leaving. If they had stuck around to find out what really happened they would have known that there was absolutely no American military personnel downtown where there rioting was taking place. It disappoints me that the news our families are is news that isn't accurate and news which serves only to scare our loved ones.

There are many things that happen in this country (as well as Iraq) that are never reported because they don't have "shock value." It is a sad day when the opening of an all girls school (which in one day has 6000 girls in attendence) in a country that no more than 4 years ago didn't allow girls to attend school can't make the news, especially when the only reason the school was opened was because the American military and contractors paid and protected the people who built it. In one year I have seen my share of nastiness, but I have also seen girls smile who have never smiled before. Kids going to school where there was no school before. Farmers growing crops where before there was nothing but barren rock because they now have an irrigation system and new wells. There are so many things, good things, that have been done here and it is all trashed by one account of careless reporting. I am truly disappointed and frankly disgusted at the news media over all of this. But hey, that is just one soldier's opinion of what I see and have to experience in a city I have spent a year of my life in. Take it for what it is worth.