Army 1st Lt. Brian N. Bradshaw [1]
was killed in Afghanistan, fighting in a war to protect all Americans,
the same day that Michael Jackson died, prompting a letter to the
Washington Post, which the paper published on Sunday [2], from Bradshaw's aunt, Martha Gillis, who scolded media priorities:
My nephew, Brian Bradshaw, was killed by an explosive device in Afghanistan on June 25, the same day that Michael Jackson died. Mr. Jackson received days of wall-to-wall coverage in the media. Where was the coverage of my nephew or the other soldiers who died that week? There were several of them, and our family crossed paths with the family of another fallen soldier at Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies come "home." Only the media in Brian's hometown [3] [in Washington State] and where he was stationed before his deployment [Alaska] covered his death.
In the letter the Post headlined, "A Life of Worth, Overlooked,"
Gillis, a resident of the Washington, DC suburb of Springfield,
Virginia, fondly recalled: "He had old-fashioned values and believed
that military service was patriotic and that actions counted more than
talk. He wasn't much for talking, although he could communicate volumes
with a raised eyebrow."
She then asked:
He was a search-and-rescue volunteer, an altar boy, a camp counselor. He carried the hopes and dreams of his parents willingly on his shoulders. What more than that did Michael Jackson do or represent that earned him memorial 'shrines,' while this soldier's death goes unheralded? It makes me want to scream.
Kudos to the Washington Post for printing the letter and making it the top one in the letters section on Sunday.
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center