Riley C. Bolt

Jeff Bezos @JeffBezos , I’m asking you to look at this once through the eyes of the people wearing the uniform since you own @washingtonpost. We volunteered and accepted the bargain. Missed birthdays, broken bodies, years away from our families, hostile fire, and the possibility that if we die, our families get roughly $500,000 in life insurance. In much of America today, that barely buys a house. We know our lot and we’re not complaining about it. But the job is hard enough without having to wonder whether an American newspaper is going to publish classified wartime command deliberations because its newsroom despises the administration and wants another cheap political scalp. Fight the President, the Secretary, the Pentagon. Whatever, that’s politics. But when the ammunition for that fight is information tied to ongoing operations and the private judgments of senior commanders, you’re spending our risk to buy your headline. That’s the part WE need you to understand. Murphy already gets a vote. So does the enemy. Exhaustion, bad intelligence, mechanical failure and plain rotten luck all get votes. We volunteered to face those things. We did NOT volunteer to become collateral damage in the Washington Post’s feud with an administration it hates. Your reporters will publish the piece, watch the engagement numbers, and go home. Some American kid will still be standing watch when they do. Jeff, give us a fucking chance. Come on man. You’ve got to clean house at that paper. The journalists are too blackpilled to be of any use anymore. In fact, they’re literally harming us. Our brothers and sisters are in a worse situation now due to this reporting. Don’t agree with the combat operations, fine. But come on. Leaking an SDOB? That’s objectively insane behavior. ***to my followers: share so we know he sees this.***

The Media Only Loves Us When We’re Dead: Part II I’m not done with this "reporter" yet. And I won’t stay silent while the media drags warfighters who bled for this nation and are now trying to make it better. I’ll be honest, I’m ashamed I didn’t look deeper into the story of @SeanParnellUSA sooner. The GWOT cuts too close to my own scars, so I looked away from the broader history. But not anymore. Media scrutiny isn’t new. Even George Washington was mocked in print. But the latest attacks on Sean Parnell say far more about the press than they do about him. So pause and remember where you were on June 10, 2006. 1. The most popular song was Hips Don’t Lie. 2. The top movie was Cars. 3. And Sean Parnell was leading 39 men through a mountain ambush by over 250 enemy fighters. He was wounded three times, and stayed in the fight. By the end of that deployment, 85% of his platoon had been wounded. Funny how you only get one Purple Heart for taking three hits in one battle, but a thousand paper cuts from the press for doing nothing wrong. So let me get this straight: guys like him are good enough to fight your wars, bury their friends, and carry the silence of it all for the rest of their lives, but not good enough to help fix the institutions that failed them? Who better than them? You think you're criticizing one man. But behind every name you recognize is a platoon’s worth of warriors you never will. Quiet. Steady. Carrying the same resolve that got them all home. And whether you realize it or not, the hopes of a generation of warfighters rest quietly on his and @PeteHegseth's shoulders. You forget: the fire that forged these men didn’t burn them up, it tempered them. And here’s the part you never seem to learn: If you keep mocking the warriors who came home and tried to lead, don’t act surprised when fewer of them show up next time. Why would they? Or maybe that’s the media's goal? But it won't work. Because in this country, it seems the only time the media honors them... is when they’re coming home in a box draped in the American Flag. ***Please share this widely to counter the harmful "media" narratives that exist to malign warfighters who bled in battle and are trying to make a difference.***