Yes, there have been attacks on students in college, high school and even elementary schools across the country, but other than Timothy McVeigh, these have been committed by civilians never knowing what it was like to risk their lives for the sake of someone else in service to the rest of this nation. Is this about a school worried about the safety of the students or is it more that he wrote what was not something the majority of the veterans would have to say? When do they give up their right to have their own views, use their own words to express what they feel or think?
He is in counseling and takes medication but that must not be good enough for college. It sends a wrong message, not just to veterans but to the students, that honesty in pain has no place there. It tells them that this minority needs to fit back in with polite society where these kinds of things are hidden from view. It also tells other veterans who may be thinking the same things at one time or another that they have something to feel ashamed of instead of acknowledging the fact that wars have been account for throughout history and it took some to write it all down. What are they teaching at that college anyway if history does not matter?
War veteran barred from CCBC campus for frank words on killing
After publishing essay on addiction to war, Charles Whittington must obtain psychological evaluation before returning to classes
By Childs Walker, The Baltimore Sun
12:09 p.m. EST, November 20, 2010
By writing the paper, Charles Whittington thought he would confront the anxieties that had tormented him since he returned from war.
He knew it wasn't normal to dwell on the pleasure of sticking his knife between an enemy soldier's ribs. But by recording his words, maybe he'd begin to purge the fixation.
So Whittington, an Iraq veteran, submitted an essay on the allure of combat for his English class at the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville. He called war a drug and wrote that killing "is something that I do not just want but something I really need so I can feel like myself."
Whittington's instructor gave him an A and suggested that he seek publication for the piece. The essay appeared in the Oct. 26 edition of the campus newspaper.
Two weeks later, the former infantryman was called to a meeting with high-ranking college officials, who told him he would be barred from campus until he obtained a psychological evaluation. "We all believe in freedom of speech, but we have to really be cautious in this post- Virginia Tech world," says college spokesman Hope Davis, referring to the 2007 massacre of 32 people by a student gunman.
But Whittington, 24, says that he has his violent impulses under control with the help of counseling and medication and that the college is unfairly keeping him from moving forward with his life.
"Right now, that's all I have left," he says of his classes.
read more here
War veteran barred from CCBC campus
If you read the comments on the story, a commenter who claims to be another Iraq War veteran attending the same college is alleging that a group of war veteran students actually filed the complaint, alleging that Whittington has grossly exaggerated his service record, never held a Combat Arms MOS, was never in an infantry battalion, has never seen combat, was not wounded by enemy fire, and plagiarized much of his essay from dialogue from the movie, "The Hurt Locker."
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how accurate that is, but as an Iraq War veteran of a recon battalion, I noticed that the line "War is a Drug" also appeared in "The Hurt Locker," and was even used in advertisements for the film. I have only seen the film once years, but even then, a lot of his essay sounded suspiciously familiar.
I also found his claim of regularly using a knife in combat to kill insurgents highly implausible.
Thank you because I didn't read the comments so this adds in a new twist on all of this.
ReplyDeleteI still think the college was wrong on what they did because he was already on medication and in therapy.