Stars & Stripes, the venerable military paper, has been on a roll lately: Its reporting on the Pentagon's dodgy "America Supports You" program prompted a serious investigation; and it got a 2009 Polk award for its stories on reporter screening in Afghanistan (curiously, the paper's ombudsman wasn't a fan of the series).
But if Stripes deserves an award for anything, it's this piece by Jeff Schogol about some of the bizarre things that land in the Defense Department's public inbox through the defense.gov website.
A case in point: The concerned citizen who suggested that the military "parachute some bears" into places where Osama bin Laden is suspected of hiding. After all, the correspondent suggested, bears have a better sense of smell than bloodhounds.
And then there's the person who wrote in to complain of being targeted by debilitating sound waves. “When the secret service came out they had a letter all prepared by my mother to force me on disability and not let me live with her and try to leave me penniless and homeless again,” they complained.
Government mind control? Voice-to-skull weapons? Stripes, you are treading dangerously close to Danger Room territory here.
[PHOTO: Wikimedia]
