E-mail gets soldier's wife in trouble

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(One can only imagine what impact the Internet had been around during the
war in Vietnam.)

Military Wife Rebuked for E-Mail
Spouse Accused of Spreading Fear in Bid for Information

By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 27, 2003; Page C01

Susan Peacock thought that the 400th Military Police Battalion Family
Readiness Group was there to provide solace and support for spouses of
soldiers shipped to Iraq.

But when she read her e-mail July 15, she was appalled at what she saw.
Group leaders were playing what one later called "hardball" with the
Columbia mother of two and other 400th family members.

"OK this has gone far enough!" they wrote. The message said that "certain
people are getting their soldiers in trouble" and that the unit's e-mail
list had been sent to the Pentagon "for possible security violations and
will be closely monitored."

A few days earlier, Peacock had heard a news report about an explosion
outside Baghdad, near where the 400th, her husband's unit, was based. Since
he'd left this spring, she'd grown skeptical of the military's unfailingly
rosy accounts of the 400th's status.

Desperately worried, she tried to get information about the blast from
family support staff and Army officials at Fort Meade, where the 400th is
based. But after three days of inquiries, Peacock said she still knew nothing.

That's when she decided the other wives of the 400th might want to know
about the incident. She sent an e-mail telling everyone what she'd heard.

"Evidently everything is not fine," she said she wrote.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51277-2003Jul26.html

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