SubscribeNY Times Caught Pedaling ‘Phony Soldier’ Story
From the Marine Corps Times:
War story told by former sailor disputed
Deployment to Iraq not in personnel record; paper issues correction
By Robert Hodierne - Staff writer
Sunday Mar 25, 2007The March 18 Sunday New York Times Magazine cover story was a gripping account of the emotional problems some female veterans suffer as results of their war experiences, sexual assaults or both.
One of the women featured in the story was a former builder constructionman Amorita Randall, 27, who served six years as a Seabee. Randall told the Times that while in the Navy, she was raped twice — in 2002 while she was stationed in Mississippi, and again in Guam in 2004. She also told the Times that she served in Iraq in 2004, which the Times reported as fact but which it now appears was not the case.
The story was written by Sara Corbett, a contract writer for the magazine. Here’s how Corbett presented it: “Her experience in Iraq, she said, included one notable combat incident, in which her Humvee was hit by an I.E.D., killing the soldier who was driving and leaving her with a brain injury. ‘I don’t remember as all of it I don’t know if I passed out or what, but it was pretty gruesome.’ “
The story goes on:
“According to the Navy, however, no after-action report exists to back up Randall’s claims of combat exposure or injury. A Navy spokesman reports that her commander says that his unit was never involved in combat during her tour. And yet, while we were discussing the supposed I.E.D. attack, Randall appeared to recall it in exacting detail — the smells, the sounds, the impact of the explosion. As she spoke, her body seemed to seize up; her speech became slurred as she slipped into a flashback. It was difficult to know what had traumatized Randall: whether she had in fact been in combat or whether she was reacting to some more generalized recollection of powerlessness.”
The Navy, while expressing sympathy to a woman it believes is suffering from stress, is annoyed that the Times did so little to check the woman’s story. A Times fact checker contacted Navy headquarters only three days before the magazine’s deadline. That, said Capt. Tom Van Leunen, deputy chief of information for the Navy, did not provide enough time to confirm Randall’s account of service in Iraq. Nonetheless, Van Leunen said, by deadline the Navy had provided enough information to the Times “to seriously question whether she’d been in Iraq.”
Aaron Rectica, who runs the magazine’s research desk, disputes that. He said that by deadline, the Navy had not given the Times any reason to disbelieve Randall’s claim of service in Iraq. Rectica said the Navy only told the paper that Randall’s commanders believed she’d been in Iraq but that no one in the unit had been in combat.
Unlike daily newspapers, which are usually printed very early on the day they are distributed, the Times’ magazine is printed a week ahead of time. The March 18 magazine went to press Friday, March 9. On the following Monday, March 12, the Navy told the Times that it had no record of Randall ever receiving hazardous duty pay or a combat zone tax exemption. One of the reasons for the Times’ apparent error was a medal. Randall’s personnel file includes a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, which is only awarded to troops who have served in a war zone. The Navy now says that medal was given to Randall in error.
Reached by phone at her home in Grand Junction, Colo., Randall declined to talk but gave the phone to her fiancé, Gregory Lund.
“This lady was sexually assaulted twice in the Navy and no one was ever punished for it,” he said. While the Navy says it can find no rape complaint, Lund says she told her doctors about the assaults.
“She went through a lot.” Lund said. But he admits he doesn’t know for sure if Randall was ever in Iraq.
“If she wasn’t, it was a bad mistake on her part,” he said. But, he added, “For her to cope with [all she’s been through], her mind somehow believes she was in Iraq. She doesn’t remember anything in Iraq . If she was wrong about that, she’s sorry. But what you folks need to realize is how traumatized she is. If she’s wrong, I don’t know. She doesn’t know.”
The editor of the magazine, Gerry Marzorati, said he now suspects Randall was never in Iraq.
“I think she thinks she was in Iraq,” he said. “I don’t think she was trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”
The magazine did not call the Navy to check Randall’s Iraq story sooner, Marzorati said, because they believed that checking rank, years of service and time in Iraq “would be a perfunctory thing.”
He added that no one has challenged the military records of the 30 other women mentioned in the article.
On Sunday, The Times published a correction to the March 18 cover story. In it, the Times states that “it is now clear that Ms. Randall did not serve in Iraq, but may have become convinced she did.”
The correction also noted that since the article was published last week, Randall herself asked a member of her unit as to whether she served in Iraq. According to The Times, the sailor told Randall that she had not been deployed there.
I hesitated to post about this, since it is hardly news when the New York Times gets caught foisting a phony story upon its unsuspecting readers.
And it’s certainly not news when one of these people with horror stories about Iraq (or Vietnam) turns out to have imagined it all.
But this story is so emblematic of both patterns it can’t be ignored.
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24 Responses to “NY Times Caught Pedaling ‘Phony Soldier’ Story”
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March 27th, 2007 at 11:26 am
“A bad mistake on her part”???? I hate it when people make stuff up. She didn’t know if she was in Iraq and under an IED attack? How about instead of sympathising with her (”But what you folks need to realize is how traumatized she is) we just call her a moonbat that makes us stuff so she can be interviewed by reporters. Eh?
March 27th, 2007 at 11:32 am
“…The magazine did not call the Navy to check Randall’s Iraq story sooner, Marzorati said, because they believed that checking rank, years of service and time in Iraq “would be a perfunctory thing.”
Ah yes. We wouldn’t want them to be subject to anything “perfunctory” (such as the facts) when they obviously had a deadline to get this important and accurate account into the mainstream.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Must be another one of those “fake but accurate” news stories the liberal MSM is so fond of. The NYT editor who published this should be banished to a local free weekly newspaper writing up birthday notices. But he/she will probably win a Pulitzer for running this garbage.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Looks to me like the Great Gray Lady is hell-bent on committing institutional suicide.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I am glad to see that the majority (McBeth, Wright, Massey) of ‘anti-war’ IVAW - are fake. The bad news is that leftists, moonbats, anti-war mongers, dems, bds sufferers, and (sadly) a lot of America does not care if it is a LIE. They believe it and run with it.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Whoa - wait a minute - The Navy did not “provide enough information’ . . . but ‘Rectica said the Navy only told the paper that Randall’s commanders believed she’d been in Iraq but that no one in the unit had been in combat’ wasn’t enough to question her IED attack story which then might make any sane, rational person question her whole story?
Or is it just me who believes if the ‘core’ of the story is false, perhaps the whole story is false?
March 27th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Was it not obvious to anyone who reads NYT that the only combat this woman saw was fighting over the last jelly donut?
March 27th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Oh great, we have a woman that is delusional and claims she was raped twice; we need Nifong on the case!
March 27th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
euroconservative:
Good point. How did this fatbody pass the physical requirements? Seems like pigs would fly before this load could do a single pullup. Don’t they have to run 1.5 miles in under 12 minutes? This one doesn’t look as though she could make it up a flight of stairs. I don’t suppose the eagle eyed NYT reporter never thought to pose that question for fear of being insensitive.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
The best is, the NYT dolt reporter is claiming “she may have believed she was in Iraq…” priceless.
This women clearly has psychological issues, one expert deemed her issue “personality disorder” - yet the libs at NYT will try to make a buck, to denounce our troops while taking advantage of sick people acting like military “heroes”, to validate their bs. Literally…
March 27th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I was going to send this story and picture in but…….
and it’s hard not to……
but arrgggggg
Why in god’s name would someone look at her and think….
I won’t say it.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
To get out of boot camp based on her age when she joined (presumably less that 21 since she had been a Seabee for 6 years [27-6=21]) she would have needed to have done a 1.5 mile run in 14:45 to 15:15 depending on what her age accurately was for the United States Navy.
http://usmilitary.about.com/li.....e17-19.htm
http://usmilitary.about.com/li.....e20-24.htm
March 27th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I know what you mean NCJ, there ain’t that much whiskey in the world to make her look attractive to me.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I’ve worked with seabees at my last command and they were ALL in shape. Even on the ships they were smaller than that.
The way the fatbodies get away with it is they get a medical waiver for some pitiful reason and they don’t have to do the PRT.
Heeeheeeee, and we all know a seabee here don’t we. Initials-s_
March 27th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Uh, I think you mean WI.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
I don’t think our founding father’s had this in mind when they guaranteed ‘freedom’ of the press.
Hey NCJ, what are the dimensions on the average navy hatch?
March 27th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Hey NCJ, what are the dimensions on the average navy hatch?
I was reading fast and thought ‘hatch’ was a different word for a second. I was like HEY! my sister is a navy woman (btw, 5′5 and 120, too cute for little sister but she carries a gun). I guess i need some Hillary education money.
Hmmmm, hatches are 3 x 4 or 5
Scuttles are 2′ round
WTDs are 6 x 3
March 27th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Sorry, WTD,s are 5×3 beause you have to step up due to the knife edge
March 27th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
First off: Raped? Raped!?! has anyone looked at that face?
Second: She still fits her uniform which tells me that she was that size when she was in the Navy…raped? RAPED?!?
March 27th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Look at the stress in the leather of her shoes!!
I should find out who her Chief is and clown him.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
When are you all going to snap to the followup article……
“Yeah we screwed up but this poor woman has issues directly attributable to Bush’s __________ (plug in the following) and she just halucinated the whole sorrid story.
a. poor war planning resulting in her lengthened service
b. lack of an exit strategy
c. killing of woman and children for oil
d. lack of body armor
e. lack of up armored hummers
f. lies about WMD’s
g. lies about Iraq’s links to al-Qeada
h. problems in Abu Garib
i. torturing innocent barbers and cooks in Gitmo
j. big ears.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
What the hell is that red thing around her wrist?? A hula hoop?
Those feet in those shoes reminds me of the Jerry Lewis movie “Who’s Minding the Store” where Ray Walston and Agnes Morehead send a lady wrestler into the shoe department to mess with Jerry and he tries to get her size 12’s into a size 6. Funny as hell.
She’s so huge Al Gore stands behind her for shade.
VoR
March 27th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
NCJ, thanks for the dimensions. The question was more about a square peg in a round hole, or ovalish hole.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Raped?
Another of her fantasies perhaps.
I have to go hurl.