All these recent deaths, 21, 23, 22 years of age…sad beyond words.
Less than 1% of Americans serve their country.
The thing is that they aren’t even serving their country. They are well-trained and well-equipped, but as all our wars since WWII have been political and not even strategic wars of choice, our combat troops really serve the same purpose as peasant armies did from the Medieval Age up through the 18th Century - expendables who are dying for anything other than the security of the U.S.
We need to reinstitute a national service requirement with options for participants to serve in the military, something akin to the CCC or something like the VISTA program with deferments granted only to those people in college studying fields that would be useful in the latter two. Make it a two year commitment that must be completed between the ages of 18 and 24. Anyone who chooses to attend college after this commitment will be a better student for it.
The photograph of Spc. Hilda Clayton was published Monday in Military Review.
Jesus the AP is bad at its job. While the preposition “of” can be used to mean “owned by” or in this case “taken by”, the immediate implication, given the photograph that is attached to the article both here and on other sites is that person being struck by the blast is Spc. Hilda Clayton. That this is a picture “of Spc. Hilda Clayton” being killed.
It is not. That is not Spc. Hilda Clayton. This is a photograph by Spc. Hilda Clayton, of the moment right before the pictured Afghan army member dies.
The link below shows a second picture, taken by an Afghani photographer (also killed in the blast), which appears to show part of Spc. Hilda Clayton’s hand and camera.
It’s never a surprise when an AP story is poorly edited. It’s a surprise to read one that isn’t. That was true even back in the Eighties, in contrast with most of big metro dailies of the time, where ambiguity like this would have been caught and fixed by competent editors and proofreaders. The AP was uniformly mediocre then and is worse now.
This is a photograph of Spc. Hilda Clayton
…hazardous duty on the field of battle as well as in the barracks… Women should have more HDP than their male counterparts.
Too late for a draft to raise participation in democracy. Tillerson, oil, serving the Saudis, Russian manipulations, Trump captive by his past and present and his family members who are compromised – these are who call the shots, and the undeclared wars. How many killed on all sides for oil? For ideology? A crusade to make gated cities of gold and just enough slaves to serve them.
Nobody is actually “serving” the country now - as long as the GOP has any influence at all. The only people being “served” are the rich. The whole idea of national “service” needs to be abolished totally. People are human beings, not “servants” (i. e. slaves).
As a former journalist and recovering grammar Nazi, I would invite you to be a little more forgiving. Yes, the preposition choice makes the sentence somewhat confusing, but it becomes clear what’s going on as you read further. Having worked with AP over the years, I know firsthand the agency may not be perfect, but it is exceptionally good at what it does. This is an organization that handles reams of information every day, and mistakes are inevitable. I’d love to follow you around for a day and start yelling out your every mistake, no matter how small or inconsequential.
Que the inevitable mouth breather politician who will decry the inclusion of women in combat-related roles or Presidential Tweet that will decry the war in Afghanistan that President Obama caused.
SPC Hilda Clayton was born in 1995 and was only 6 years on 9-11!
I agree that some kind of mandatory service would likely be a useful thing to do, and would strengthen social cohesion. Since military options only support current foreign policy objectives, there should be other types of service that address the countless other needs, as the OP states.
This breaks my heart. RIP girl.
Didn’t say anything about it having anything to do with political participation. My entire point was that not a single person in the U.S. military can be seen as giving service to our country and the combat forces in particular do nothing to safeguard us. They are strictly the sharp end of a political spear killing invented enemies.
Please, no do that 
ha. i just might after all.
Wow, TPM covering a war story.! A first!
I was very confused by the story. I also surmised that the person in the picture was not Hilda Clayton. So even if they can’t identify the soldier in the picture, they could at least have said it was one of the four Afghan troops that were also killed in the blast. I didn’t see that anywhere in the article.