Loose lips sink ships and communities
This past week there was a murder-homicide that occurred inside the PX at Ft. Lewis. My son and his wife are stationed there, and I have two friends who are stationed there as well. Fortunately no one I know personally was involved or in the PX when it happened. All we know at this point is a retired soldier, aged 59, walked into the PX and opened fire on a civilian, female, employee. He killed her and then turned the gun on himself. He died later that day at the hospital. The PX was full of shoppers when this happened. The murder suicide was witnessed by women and children.
The story is horrible. It’s tragic. I am actually pleased to see that the main stream media has not made more of it than it was. I wish I could say the same thing about the gossip and the rumor pushers both inside the installation and out. Within minutes the rumor mill started and lips were flapping. The first speculation was the man was a young Iraqi veteran who killed his cheating wife. That shifted to the man being a Vietnam Veteran who killed a random woman. The story grew in insanity. I had to wait until I saw some consistent local reporting before I felt like I knew what really happened.
Are our lives so starved for drama we feel the need to take an already horrific crime scene and add to it? Why in the world do we insert ourselves into these kinds of things by gossiping and spreading stories?
The story gets worse. Not the story about the retired soldier and the woman he murdered — that couldn’t get any worse. The story of gossip and careless words gets worse. I peeked at the comments being made on the online newspaper by civilians in that area about our military. Apparently military bases have a fair share of gossips and story spreaders, but our civilian neighborhoods are not lacking either. Everyone was an expert on what happened, how the man’s “veteran status” (not confirmed at that point if he was a vet or not) affected him, and why we should disarm all veterans. Of course no one addressed the fact that civilians committing murders FAR out numbers those committed by military members.
Ideas, stories and words have consequences. We are far too careless as a culture — I will admit I have been careless before, myself. It’s a mistake I am trying hard to never fall into again. We all feel entitled to our opinion. Anytime we feel entitled to something we divorce the reality of consequences and responsibility that goes with the thing we feel entitled to. Speech is a right. Responsibility is innate with every right we exercise.
