The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1943-03-11
LET'S HAVE 1T STRAIGHT

No drawer or more alert group of men is involved in the
war than our war correspondents. Time after time they have
risked their lives and the casualties among them have proba-
bly, been higher, in proportion to their numbers, than among
personnel of the armed forces.
Too, they work under difficulties. They are set about with
official restrictions and military censorship. They cannot tell
the complete story of what is going on. But some, not all of
them, have so far failed to bring to the folks back home
the true meaning of war. Officers and men who return from
the combat areas are quick to detect the feeling among many
people that the war has been one grand picnic for the men in
uniform, just a succession of quick victories.
1t is not very often that we get stories like Cecil Browns
eyewitness account of the sinking of the Repulse and Prince
of Wales or one like that of a marine combat correspondent
on Guadalcanal appearing in a national magazine that gave the
details of the fighting methods of the little yellow men and
revealed, in shocking realism, the hell our forces underwent
on Guadalcanal. There are many experiences just as harrow
ing as Eddie Rckenbackers, but we have heard of few.
This is partly a failure of the war correspondents to be objec-
tive. Some of them have become inflated with their own ego
and spend more space recountng their personal experiences
than they do in detailing the travail our men are undergoing
The American people should have a better knowledge of the
experiences of the common soldier. Some correspondents have
an overdose of what the old minstrel end-man called "I' trouble
wasting space telling how 81" had luncheon with some gen.
eral or how Il" ate a sandwich on a Flyine Fortress raid or
how 81" reached some front.
Again we run into something that appears to stem from an
official attitude in Washington, a tendency to gloss over the
bad news and play up, out of all proportion to its Importance,
some small victory.
Not long ago we talked With an army officer who had seen
service in the Pacific. From there, he had gone to a certain
locality in the United States. The people, he found, generally
were out to make a profit from the emergency, willing to exact
every penny they could from the government or from a SOL
dier. They wanted to get theirs" Coming from where he did,
this officer reflected rather bitterly that, in one sense, a bit of
bombing might do these people some good.
Too many of us, and too many of our representatives, still
want to fight a soft war" We want to win without sacrifice
or effort. Some want to win, but only at a profit. Too few of us
have any realization of what the man at the front faces. The
war correspondent has failed, in this field, to bring home the
meaning of war. He should do it in the unvarnished language
OF They Were dependable" part of the story of what hap
pened in the Philippines, written by w. L. White. Then, per-
haps, we will begin to realize what we are facing. The news
men and the government agencies that control the news should
meet this responsibility for it is of grave Importance to the
home front effort.