This happens all the time.
The first thing you do with your brand new platoon out of forming and into a series on Parris Island is sit on the end of your foot locker and write what the drill instructor dictates on your brand new px stationary issued for that very purpose. "I am being well cared for and trained hard. All of my needs are being met, I will be provided the best medical attention, and all of my nutrion requirements are satisfied. etc...Very common in my experience. Battalions would sit in the hanger deck of an LHA and write out identical letters, with coaching from the chain of command and with only some adding some personalization. Especially when the mom of that ~one~ dude, who never writes anyone, contacts her congressmen, and ~he~ wants to know why LtCol Scmuckatelli's battalion has a complaining mom...Address an envelope, lick a stamp and throw it into the mail bag, every fucking one of you. Then board the helo or LCU and head inland for some snoopin and poopin.
I will not belittle the apparently verified and very honorable accompishments of those men, OR those leading them because of a letter regardless of the flavor: form, dictated by the smadge, or other.
out,
-bear
Here's some interesting quotes from some of the soldiers involved, published at the mirror.co.uk:
Quote:
Sergeant Christopher Shelton said his platoon sergeant handed out copies of the letter and asked soldiers to sign it if they agreed with what it said.
Shelton, who did sign the letter which appeared in the Snohomish Herald, said: "Everything it said is dead accurate. We've done a really good job." But Sergeant Shawn Grueser said he did not sign the letter that ended up in his local paper in Charleston, West Virginia.
"It makes it look like you cheated on a test," he said.
Sergeant Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 503rd Airborne, said he had been told a soldier had written the letters. "When he asked other soldiers in his unit to sign it, they did.
"Someone took it upon themselves to mail it to various newspapers across the country."
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(at this link:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews...name_page.html )