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How can you be more reasonable than that?</p>
<p>How could anyone argue with keeping this guy off campus? Put the nobility and soldier solidarity aside. </p>
<p>If anyone else wrote about their need for violence, they’d be banned. So, when someone who is trained in the art of war says it, we need to do it doubly quick.</p>
<p>His experiences in combat may have exposed him to the “real world”, but in doing so they have also desensitized him to death. @hellojan: Good point that he is doubly dangerous because he was trained in war. Thank you, Community College of Baltimore, for preventing another VT incident.</p>
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<li>The vet’s essay was an incredibly poignant look into war and it should not have been censored. That said, maybe it should have been published anonymously, and maybe the prof should have privately referred the vet to the college administration. It’s not really fair that the prof encouraged this to go totally public with seeming disregard for how sensitive the subject matter is (I don’t doubt some employers might do a google search on his name, come across this essay, and run screaming in the other direction).</li>
<li>You can’t get more reasonable than requesting someone get a psych eval after he/she expressed an addiction to killing. So this is how vets feel? This kinda essay is normal? Well, great. That just means we need to stop fighting wars, not that we need to get all up in arms about asking this young man to get evaluated by a professional.</li>
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<p>When was the last time a Veteran went on a schoot shooting? There are tens of thousands of combat veterans attending schools across America with PTSD. When have they comitted anything like VT?</p>
<p>This guy has surely already had PTSD treatment. I got screened for it constantly. The VA is almost too sensitive to the issue now. </p>
<p>Buffon your comments are particularly insulting. “For preventing another VT incident”? What direct evidence was there that he was going to kill dozens of innocent students? There was none, you likely just another hyper-sensitive parent without any understanding of PTSD and veterans.</p>
<p>You just made my day. </p>
<p>People sit around sipping on their Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha’s and have no idea what SACRIFICE is… none at all. Its disheartening to see people so out of touch with the fact that we go to war for their right to BS all day. GIMME GIMME GIMME MORE MORE MORE and don’t forget the sugar on top. Much love to all the Brothers and Sisters in harms way. Present and Past.</p>
<p>My opinion is that those who stand to suffer the most from an incident such as this are the other veterans on campus.</p>
<p>If you are a veteran or are close to one, then you are familiar with how difficult the process of re-integration into society is after having served in the total institution that is the military, whether one is a combat vet or not. There is enough of a stigma surrounding veterans as it is, and they certainly have nothing to gain from such an article being published that will characterize veterans as killing addicts, potentially raising questions about the inner demons of every veteran student even to the most open-minded of teachers and fellow students.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this situation just made it even harder for veterans to prove that they aren’t all psychologically scarred victims suffering from the emotional trauma of war. One bad apple ruins the bunch, as they say; so the level-headed, mature, and disciplined veteran students who also attend the school will be paying the price for this grossly inaccurate characterization of veterans, whether or not the writer of the essay chooses to return to the school.</p>
<p>While this is essentially a “free speech vs. censorship” issue and I cant condone the restriction of the writers rights, there are always peripheral effects to such actions. Lets not forget that in an insular environment like a college campus, he is representing a likely small and already misunderstood community, and putting out such a disturbing message will mar the reputations of his fellow veterans in a way he likely never intended. If the professor or editor had asked him if he was fully prepared to accept responsibility for the images in this essay running through the minds of students and faculty on campus whenever they encounter other veterans in their daily lives, one wonders if he would have still elected to have it published.</p>
<p>Better judgment should have been exercised all around, particularly by the editors of the paper. A response essay by the other veterans who the article mentions might be a good counter-measure, for their own sake as well as the school’s. If it was at my school, I’d write it myself. And the faculty referring him to psychiatric treatment is perfectly reasonable, especially considering the thousands of other student’s safety the school is tasked with maintaining; and the parents, administrators, and safety officials they have to answer to.</p>