Soldiers' Hidden Struggles

Browsing New York Times online, I came across a story about elevated numbers of suicides occurring at Fort Hood in Texas, the site where Nidal Hasan killed 13 people last year. While this story was huge news last November, it's pretty troubling to me that according to NYTimes, 14 people have committed suicide at Ford Hood alone and I haven't heard a peep until now.

The story of the original Ft. Hood shooting was told with detail and emotion, painting a picture of a horrific crime committed against some lurking foreign enemy living as an abomination in our nearly perfect country. Last November, the media seemed all too willing to pounce on the opportunity to perpetuate Americans' socially constructed myth of good guys vs. bad guys, of evil threatening good but never being able to prevail.

As a parade of ambulances wailed to the scene of the shootings, officials said the extent of injuries to the wounded varied significantly, with some in critical condition and others lightly wounded. General Cone praised the first-responders and the medics who acted quickly to administer first aid at the scene.

A story. We're given details, meant to evoke emotion to paint a picture of the tragic day. We're given information on the culprit, details of the United States' immediate action, and perspective from a family member of a victim.

And when, over the course of 9 months, 14 American soldiers take their own lives? We get a brief. No story, just facts, and a couple quotes that just barely begin to tug at the heartstrings.

Yes, 14 people from one army base have killed themselves this year, but "hush, hush!" Because we can't have any cracks in the perfect facade of our fearless American army, fighting the "bad guys" overseas, the "bad guys" who want to fly our planes into buildings, the "bad guys" who open fire at Ft. Hood. Yes, our soldiers may be fighting huge battles of their own as they train to fight the bad guys, but they can figure it out for themselves. They'll get better, and there are still lots of other soldiers who aren't depressed and crazy.

Right?

No, I think Americans deserve to know about the sufferings of their compatriots, to hear their stories and the stories of their families, so they can-- we can-- help. The media just doesn't have the right to hide information from us, to tell us one tragic story in great detail but keep another, equally as tragic one hidden.

Hello!

Newspapers aren't just for relaying raw facts about the biggest current events. Rather, they can be used as media to tell stories of people and cultures that audiences may not know much about. I love journalism. I love to write, but more importantly at this stage in my life, I love reading good journalism. Since news is so all-inclusive, it's natural to make connections between what we talk about in my Glenbrook Academy English class and what is happening in the world.

As a senior in high school, I do my best to write good stories for our school's newspaper. I'm devoted to The Torch. And there's no better way for me to become a better writer than by reading the newspaper, and reading it often. The purpose of this blog is to give me an opportunity to carefully look at selected news stories, ideally making connections to our English curriculum.

I'm no critic, but I know when I like a story. My experience in journalism allows me to pick out elements of a story that make it good, and also to highlight what a particular story could be missing.

Recently in English, we've been looking at Genesis. In class, we've made note of the sexism that appears.

'This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.' (Genesis 2:23)

To the woman He said:

'I will greatly multiply
your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.' (Genesis 3:16)

Such passages illustrate the patriarchy set up in the Bible (and the Torah and the Qur'an, for that matter). Islamic patriarchy brings me to a news story I read recently in the New York Times.

This story was truly shocking to me. While I knew about the female obligation to wear the burqa, I didn't realize how truly discriminated against women are in everyday life in Afghanistan, and probably other Muslim countries as well. Little girls are forfeiting a huge part of their identity--their gender--because their society, and even their families, are so ashamed of them. While in America we can say, for the most part, that much gender discrimination has ceased, clearly the situation in Afghanistan is very different. The article highlights a part of Afghanistan that most readers were probably completely ignorant about before reading.

The writer Jenny Nordberg does a superb job painting a picture of what life is like for these gender-confused children and young adults. However, a little more background may have been helpful. As a reader who knows a little bit about the strictness of Islam, I was somewhat confused about the origin of the society's discrimination against women. The article says that wealth and a family name is passed down through sons, but that doesn't fully explain why outsiders frown down upon little girls in general. It may have been helpful to have the perspective of an Afghan man (or woman, for that matter) who is convinced of the inferiority of women. While I was fully able to get the impression that women are valued far, far less than men, it would have been nice to have a clearer idea of why.

That said, Nordberg's story is excellent. She doesn't make the Afghan people seem like freaks; rather, she successfully illustrates many of the differences in their culture that can help explain why girls are living as boys.

It is a commonly held belief among less educated Afghans that the mother can determine the sex of her unborn child, so she is blamed if she gives birth to a daughter. Several Afghan doctors and health care workers from around the country said that they had witnessed the despair of women when they gave birth to daughters, and that the pressure to produce a son fueled the practice.

In just these two sentences, Nordberg powerfully demonstrates how very different life in Afghanistan is from life in America. She also picks up on small things that make the article stronger.

“He is very naughty,” Mrs. Rafaat said in English with a sigh, of Mehran, mixing up the gender-specific pronoun, which does not exist in Dari. “My daughter adopted all the boys’ traits very soon. You’ve seen her — the attitude, the talking — she has nothing of a girl in her.”

Rather than using a bracketed "She" in the place of "he", Nordberg seizes on the cultural difference to add to her story and greatly strengthen the point of the article.

This article proves that news doesn't have to be boring. It's about telling stories, just as Nordberg has done so well.