--- You know, until Saturday afternoon I had no clue as to who Micah Wright was. Want the scoop---Michele, as usual, has it covered.
Scroll down to the bottom and read from there. Long story short: to not
catch flack for putting out repulsive anti-war posters, he said he was
a Vet. A Ranger to be precise. When the flack stopped coming his way,
he decided to take the lie even further and in every post he left on
multitudinous message boards kept up with the lie as a way of winning
the argument. Basically his argument was I
served, you didn't. I'm right. You're wrong. You have no business ever
saying anything about the war ever again because you never served.
This lie also helped him reap a book contract and a lot of publicity.
Then people got suspicious. His accounts didn't match up with the
truth. And eventually the Washington Post outed him. The blogosphere
has been up in arms about this one all weekend long. Now, I had no idea
who Micah Wright was before this weekend. But I did know a Ranger once
upon a time and I'm offended on her behalf because of this jerk. She
was my roommate for a summer in college. Her name was Sarah. I'm
ashamed to say I don't remember her last name, because she was very
cool, but I wasn't there very often and neither was she. The first time
I met her, I'd already moved in and wasn't there when she'd arrived. I
waited for days for her to arrive, but she'd apparently been delayed
because of a flight screwup. I went about my business and one hot
afternoon in late May, I walked into my room and was surprised to see a
slightly framed brunette standing there in her bra and a pair of
shorts, an open suitcase at her feet. She was in the middle of the
tricky process of removing a small white, surgical taped bandage from
her skin. Never one to be surprised at anything, she just looked up and
smiled and said, "You must be Kathy. It's nice to finally meet you,"
while she kept on with her work. After introducing myself and doing the
usual greeting thing, I watched her replace the old bandage with a
fresh one after applying a generous coating of Neosporin. She swiftly
and precisely taped it off and then threw her t-shirt back on. I
couldn't help but ask: "What happened?" The bandaged spot was a little
to the left and north of her left breast. It looked like it hurt. I
rubbed the same spot on my left breast, much in the same way a man will
reflexively grab himself when he sees another man get kicked in the
crotch. "I just got my jump wings,"
she replied nonchalantly. "Unfortunately, it got infected."
"What'd you do? Poke yourself with something when you were
parachuting?" I asked.
"Nope," she said laughingly. "Don't know much about Rangers, do you?"
There was no condescension in her question.
"No," I replied. "Well, when you get your jump wings, they don't attach
the backing to the pin when they award it to you. They hand it to you."
"Huh?" This made no sense. "I'm not getting it."
She just smiled and changed the subject. I let it go, but brought it up
to the husband later on and he nodded approvingly. "Kath," he said,
"They call it blood winging.
Her commander took the pin and instead of pinning it on her, he slammed
it into her...probably with a helmet or with his hand. And then he
probably handed her the backing to the pin. It's tradition. It's
probably a much tougher process with the Rangers than with other
branches." Damn. I thought, and had a great deal of respect for her for
enduring that. And over the summer, I gained a great deal of respect
for her. That was one tough, motivated chick. She was the only
female in her jump class, too. There was no way she could back down,
even if she had wanted to. Micah Wright, spineless simp that he is,
would have probably pissed himself at the mere thought of going through
that.