Recently, Associated Press reporter Julie Jacobson took a photograph of 21 year old Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard who was dying at the time because his legs had been blown off. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried very hard to have the picture suppressed but he failed and it appeared in a number of newspapers. Gates cited the anguish of Bernard’s parents as the reason for his attempted censorship. However, Fred Reed, a Vietnam combat veteran who was seriously wounded there, explains, in an article titled Killing America’s Kids posted on LewRockwell.com, exactly why the publication of this image made Robert Gates so furious and it has nothing to do with the feelings of Joshua Bernard’s mother and father.

Also, with so many criticizing Julie Jacobson for taking the photo, Reed feels it is appropriate to point out that she “has more combat time than the aggregate for Bush II, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Obama, Biden, Gonzalez, Clinton, Perle, Abrams, Kristol, Feith, Podhoretz, Krauthammer, George Will, Dershowitz, and Gates. These men, if the word is appropriate, killed that kid. Jacobson just caught them in the act.”