DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE

Trump's continuing attack on Stars and Stripes is a threat to the truth and our national security ...

I will keep today’s missive brief.

I would like to tip you to a piece today on CBS Sunday Morning about the Pentagon’s ongoing attack on Stars and Stripes newspaper, the congressionally mandated, editorially independent newspaper that covers the troops and their families overseas and in theaters of war.

(And yes, I get the irony of CBS, a once-proud news station that has repeatedly surrendered its editorial integrity to the dishonorable regime in our White House, doing what I judge to be a fair piece today. It worries me they might not see this terribly sad and dangerous irony.)

As many of you know I was the Managing Editor at Stripes from 1998-2009, and believe it to be the most important newspaper in our country, because it serves its most important readers, while standing on the battle line of free speech and government control.

Stripes exists to inform and protect our troops from people like the despicable Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump who do not believe our troops — or anybody for that matter — are owed the truth.

They are proven serial liars both, and that in itself could stand tons more reporting than it gets from our working press. When nothing can be believed by the men who control the most powerful military in the world, it is a direct threat to our national security.

I tell you this both as a veteran who read the paper in the 1970s, and as a journalist who later worked there: Stars and Stripes represents the very best of America. Our smartest Democratic and Republican presidents and military leaders throughout history have realized this, and supported the paper.

That Trump and Hegseth stand against it is very telling.

What are they so damned scared of?

Onward,

Earl

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(D. Earl Stephens is a United States Navy Veteran, and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)

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