Obscene gesture photo at Arlington Cemetery stirs anger

Submitted by Mastodon on Wed, 2012-11-21 18:02

Story here. Excerpt:

'Two young Massachusetts women have been placed on unpaid leave from their jobs after posting a photo on Facebook showing one of them at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery giving the finger beside a sign calling for silence and respect.

Lindsey Stone, 30, and Jamie Schuh, who took the photo, were placed on unpaid leave by a non-profit, LIFE Inc., based in Hyannis, Mass., which helps adults with special needs, the Cape Cod Time reported on Wednesday.

The chief financial officer of the told the Times that the company is ''appalled.''

A Fire Lindsey Stone page has gotten more than 14,000 "likes."'

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Comments

...in this case, without even a proper burial and without even their deaths confirmed, so a couple of punks can flip the bird at a sign merely asking for some silence to show respect next to the memorial that honors them-- a memorial that is ceremonially guarded fastidiously day and night by men, regardless of even the most severe of weather conditions.

Arguably, and in particular for Americans, perhaps the greatest right we hold dear is the right to self-expression. Perhaps a sizable number of men who served and died in wars present and past would concur that as distasteful and immature as an expressed sentiment may be, it's a protected freedom. It is in fact what, perhaps, in their minds, they went out to fight and die for. There may well be a case to be made for that and I do see the point. Should the girls be jailed for what they did, as the authorities might do in other countries? Absolutely not.

But I just have to wonder: Would they have done that at the The Women's Memorial also in Arlington National Cemetery, if they came across a sign asking for silence as a show of respect for the many women who have been in the armed forces through the years? Somehow I have to imagine that they wouldn't have. Or what if 99.9999% of all of those who have been killed/maimed/gone missing in the military history of the US were in fact female instead of male? Would they have done the same thing? Again, I really doubt it.

What makes their behavior all the more egregious is that they don't even have to worry about getting drafted, should the draft be activated. As females, they don't even have to register, much less be concerned that by failing to do so they may lose access to such things as guaranteed student loans, unemployment services, etc.

I once overheard a much-older woman say to her friend at a supermarket something like this: "Today's girls have no idea how good they have it!" Yep.

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2012-11-22 03:29