{"id":30131,"date":"2012-05-26T08:53:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-26T12:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=30131"},"modified":"2012-05-27T03:37:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-27T07:37:49","slug":"pittard-hoisted-by-his-own-petard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=30131","title":{"rendered":"Pittard hoisted by his own petard"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, several of you sent me links to the statement by Fort Bliss commander, Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard who wrote on his blog that soldiers who commit suicide are selfish. According to Star & Stripes<\/a>, the blog post, written in January and since removed read;<\/p>\n

“I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act. Soldiers who commit suicide leave their families, their buddies and their units to literally clean up their mess. There is nothing noble about suicide. … I am personally fed up with Soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was written after General Pittard attended a funeral of one of his soldiers who had committed suicide on Christmas Day. I’m sure the general felt frustration and regret for the loss of life, but he wasn’t really helping the situation. Anyway, he has since recanted that statement, recognizing that his statement wasn’t at all helpful. From CNN<\/a>;<\/p>\n

After meeting with a retired military member recently about the blog, Pittard decided this week to retract the blog and explain himself, according to his office.<\/p>\n

His retraction reads in part: “In my commentary published January 19, 2012, I stated suicide was a selfish act. Thanks to many of you and your feedback, I have learned that this was a hurtful statement. I also realize that my statement was not in line with the Army’s guidance regarding sensitivity to suicide. With my deepest sincerity and respect towards those whom I have offended, I retract that statement.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, it was a poor choice of words, written from an emotional response and retracting it doesn’t really make it not exist, aside from the fact that the internet always remembers, so do people. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, several of you sent me links to the statement by Fort Bliss commander, … Pittard hoisted by his own petard<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}