mrwill
7 May 2008, 14:34
http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=164000&zoneid=500
I'm originally from the Bangor, Maine area, and unfortunately so is Stephen King. He is, and always has been (IMHO) a boisterous ass. Everything from swearing at kids on our baseball team when we played against his son's team 18 or so years ago to him coming into the grocery store smelling like a bag of trash all the time. Yes, this is the same area where the fat girl set up the flags on the ground so people would step on them. Well, here's a bit he contrived about his thoughts on the war and the military:
Stephen King fires back after blogger attacks remarks
By The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 07, 2008 - Bangor Daily News
BANGOR, Maine — Stephen King has fired back at conservative critics who attacked him over a remark he made a month ago at a writers symposium for high school students.
A blogger jumped on King’s statement at the Library of Congress about the importance of reading in which he suggested poor readers have limited prospects, including service in the Army.
"I don’t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s not as bright," King said at the April 4 event in which he was accompanied by his wife Tabitha and son Owen.
Blogger Noel Sheppard likened the comment to former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s remarks that if you don’t get a good education, "you get stuck in Iraq."
"Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen," Sheppard wrote.
King fired back Monday.
"That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt," he said in a statement posted on his Web site.
King said he supports the troops but believes the war in Iraq is a "waste of national resources ... and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded."
"I live in a National Guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career — military or otherwise," King said.
And here is my readers-write response:
(I encourage you to throw your comments in there to the paper if you so desire)
So “Steve”, you say your argument is that kids should learn to read so that their options aren’t limited to “The Army and Iraq”. First of all, to educate you, the military tests every recruit using the ASVAB testing method, which ENSURES they can read. No military branch accepts recruits that can not read. Sure, the military has granted waivers lately on smaller criminal offenses, but every military member can read. I would leave the debunking of your argument at that, but let me educate you further. What I believe you meant to say was that you want to see a better education system take form so that young people have a broader range of career options. That would have been acceptable. However, this “awful war machine” you portray the Army and military as helps many young people not only grow in many ways, but also enables them to further their education. You portray the military as a “last resort” for those who have no options, jumping on the bandwagon that so many uninformed celebrities do, using your undeserved privilege of influencing the public. But that’s ok, that’s what we, the United States military veterans have provided for you, a warm blanket of freedom where you can speak your mind without thought of repercussion. You portray the military as a haven for illiterate kids with no other option, as though it’s a home for wayward miscreants. I think your pity and helpful desires should be focused instead on the education system that failed the children that can’t read, or maybe the social and economic conditions that brought about the lack of education for those children, instead of focusing on the military as the problem. It was the Army who took me in when I enlisted, bottom 1/5 of my high school class and who gave me the discipline I lacked in school. It gave me enough discipline to study incredibly hard and ace the SAT’s, and gave me a shot at prep school and subsequently, the United States Military Academy, otherwise known as “West Point”. I went from serving as an enlisted infantryman to being an officer and having the privilege to leading 40 of the finest Infantry Soldiers out there in the invasion of Iraq, and going on to lead a company of 150 combat arms Soldiers a few years later.
You talk about your pity for us, spilling our blood, like we were forced into our service. In case you haven’t noticed, there is no more draft. We VOLUNTEERED to shoulder this burden. I volunteered to fight, to lead my Soldiers and to die if necessary for our country. Keep in mind I said “country.” I know you are opposed to President Bush’s policies as many are. That is fine, and there are many Soldiers and Officers out there that disagree with his policies and decisions as well. However, we serve our country, regardless of who is the Commander in Chief. We serve because we believe in the idea of the United States, being a free country where a kid from the bottom 1/5 of his class from nowhere Maine can go to an Ivy League school just based on effort, a country where a horror novelist can politically influence others while having no political experience himself.
You dole out pity for our spilled blood, but you don’t even know what you pity us for. Your pity is useless to us because we don’t want your pity. We just want to know we did all we could. I can live with the fact that I am permanently disabled because of my service and having to take 6 different medicines every day to deal with the pain. I can deal with my mind being racked with gore and sheer horror some nights from what I have seen in Iraq. I can reason through the fact that this war has taken away more than a few friends, West Point classmates and Soldiers I led, and taken away the limbs and sight of more friends. I can even keep myself calm when a UMF college student who has never fought for her country and seen her friends die horrible deaths for their country and flag, puts our flag on the ground so people can trample on it and it’s ideals. I can try to understand that she is young, naïve, and will never know the sacrifice the Veteran’s made to give her that right. But what I can’t understand is why you think we want pity. Every day I think to myself that I haven’t done enough. Every day I try to give something else to our country. I gave everything I could to my country when it asked it of me. I gave all I had when Clinton was president, and I still do, with President Bush. I will continue to do so when our next President takes office. It’s a tough fight, and the Army and the rest of the military is taking some scrapes, but we are fighting on, fighting for our country, our flag, and for everything it represents. We don’t need pity, we just need to know we gave everything we could. Let's make a deal Steve, you stick to writing books and I will stick to shouldering the burden of this war without complaint. Deal?
I'm originally from the Bangor, Maine area, and unfortunately so is Stephen King. He is, and always has been (IMHO) a boisterous ass. Everything from swearing at kids on our baseball team when we played against his son's team 18 or so years ago to him coming into the grocery store smelling like a bag of trash all the time. Yes, this is the same area where the fat girl set up the flags on the ground so people would step on them. Well, here's a bit he contrived about his thoughts on the war and the military:
Stephen King fires back after blogger attacks remarks
By The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 07, 2008 - Bangor Daily News
BANGOR, Maine — Stephen King has fired back at conservative critics who attacked him over a remark he made a month ago at a writers symposium for high school students.
A blogger jumped on King’s statement at the Library of Congress about the importance of reading in which he suggested poor readers have limited prospects, including service in the Army.
"I don’t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s not as bright," King said at the April 4 event in which he was accompanied by his wife Tabitha and son Owen.
Blogger Noel Sheppard likened the comment to former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s remarks that if you don’t get a good education, "you get stuck in Iraq."
"Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen," Sheppard wrote.
King fired back Monday.
"That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt," he said in a statement posted on his Web site.
King said he supports the troops but believes the war in Iraq is a "waste of national resources ... and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded."
"I live in a National Guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career — military or otherwise," King said.
And here is my readers-write response:
(I encourage you to throw your comments in there to the paper if you so desire)
So “Steve”, you say your argument is that kids should learn to read so that their options aren’t limited to “The Army and Iraq”. First of all, to educate you, the military tests every recruit using the ASVAB testing method, which ENSURES they can read. No military branch accepts recruits that can not read. Sure, the military has granted waivers lately on smaller criminal offenses, but every military member can read. I would leave the debunking of your argument at that, but let me educate you further. What I believe you meant to say was that you want to see a better education system take form so that young people have a broader range of career options. That would have been acceptable. However, this “awful war machine” you portray the Army and military as helps many young people not only grow in many ways, but also enables them to further their education. You portray the military as a “last resort” for those who have no options, jumping on the bandwagon that so many uninformed celebrities do, using your undeserved privilege of influencing the public. But that’s ok, that’s what we, the United States military veterans have provided for you, a warm blanket of freedom where you can speak your mind without thought of repercussion. You portray the military as a haven for illiterate kids with no other option, as though it’s a home for wayward miscreants. I think your pity and helpful desires should be focused instead on the education system that failed the children that can’t read, or maybe the social and economic conditions that brought about the lack of education for those children, instead of focusing on the military as the problem. It was the Army who took me in when I enlisted, bottom 1/5 of my high school class and who gave me the discipline I lacked in school. It gave me enough discipline to study incredibly hard and ace the SAT’s, and gave me a shot at prep school and subsequently, the United States Military Academy, otherwise known as “West Point”. I went from serving as an enlisted infantryman to being an officer and having the privilege to leading 40 of the finest Infantry Soldiers out there in the invasion of Iraq, and going on to lead a company of 150 combat arms Soldiers a few years later.
You talk about your pity for us, spilling our blood, like we were forced into our service. In case you haven’t noticed, there is no more draft. We VOLUNTEERED to shoulder this burden. I volunteered to fight, to lead my Soldiers and to die if necessary for our country. Keep in mind I said “country.” I know you are opposed to President Bush’s policies as many are. That is fine, and there are many Soldiers and Officers out there that disagree with his policies and decisions as well. However, we serve our country, regardless of who is the Commander in Chief. We serve because we believe in the idea of the United States, being a free country where a kid from the bottom 1/5 of his class from nowhere Maine can go to an Ivy League school just based on effort, a country where a horror novelist can politically influence others while having no political experience himself.
You dole out pity for our spilled blood, but you don’t even know what you pity us for. Your pity is useless to us because we don’t want your pity. We just want to know we did all we could. I can live with the fact that I am permanently disabled because of my service and having to take 6 different medicines every day to deal with the pain. I can deal with my mind being racked with gore and sheer horror some nights from what I have seen in Iraq. I can reason through the fact that this war has taken away more than a few friends, West Point classmates and Soldiers I led, and taken away the limbs and sight of more friends. I can even keep myself calm when a UMF college student who has never fought for her country and seen her friends die horrible deaths for their country and flag, puts our flag on the ground so people can trample on it and it’s ideals. I can try to understand that she is young, naïve, and will never know the sacrifice the Veteran’s made to give her that right. But what I can’t understand is why you think we want pity. Every day I think to myself that I haven’t done enough. Every day I try to give something else to our country. I gave everything I could to my country when it asked it of me. I gave all I had when Clinton was president, and I still do, with President Bush. I will continue to do so when our next President takes office. It’s a tough fight, and the Army and the rest of the military is taking some scrapes, but we are fighting on, fighting for our country, our flag, and for everything it represents. We don’t need pity, we just need to know we gave everything we could. Let's make a deal Steve, you stick to writing books and I will stick to shouldering the burden of this war without complaint. Deal?