It's Not Like Obama To Miss A Photo Opportunity

by Michael D. Hume, M.S.

I used to be an Army journalist, approximately one billion years ago, and that means your U.S. Government armed me (at the tender age of 18) with an M-16 semi-automatic rifle and a Canon AE-1 fully automatic camera. They even gave me bullets for the camera, and film for the... wait a minute... hmm... I'm starting to get an idea of why I had certain difficulties back in that job.

Anyway, my point, if any, is that we Army journalists were OK with our rifles, but we were very dangerous with our cameras. We took pictures of everything. On assignment, we were required to take the obligatory change-of-command ceremony pictures (often referred to as the classic "grip and grin"), as well as pictures of platoons which had done something worthy of photographic recognition in the division newspaper ("Fighting Fourth Platoon Sets Record For Local Jail Time"). Those photos were called "Mob Of The Month" shots. Not interesting, maybe, but not challenging either.

One of my buddies was famous among us for taking pictures of: himself. In his camouflage gear. At his desk in the Public Affairs Office. Playing touch football. Drinking beer. He seemed to keep our photo lab employed single-handedly, creating an endless stream of black-and-white prints that needed to be developed and shipped back to an endless stream of girlfriends in California. I'll never forget the new guy we had in the photo lab, one time, who was smart enough to catch on to my buddy's egotism and sent back prints with a perfect white square over his face on every picture. When my buddy complained, the new guy just shrugged and said "Must be a spot on the negative, Sarge." Loved that guy! I think he went on to start a lucrative business of some kind. I wouldn't doubt that he's thriving, able to build wealth even in these tough times, wherever he is.

So while everyone was thinking about the brave troops who finally capped Osama Bin Laden the other day, I was also thinking about whether or not they had a 71-Quebec out there with them on that mission (that's Army Talk for "journalist," or at least it used to be). I guess they must have, because this week's big news is President Obama's decision not to release the photos that were taken of Dead Terrorist Number One. So since the global paparrazzi corps was busy sobering up in London after Will-'n'-Kate, and since civilian "journalists" only take pictures of car chases and tornado damage (when they can squeeze those things in around their grip-and-grin work at the White House), any photos that existed had to have been taken by some hard-working military journalist.

But the president announced he won't release the photos. He has a point. They might further enrage the fully-enraged pro-terrorists around the world They might make those who hate us, well, hate us. They're too gross to put in the paper, or on TV, because they might distract from the standard images of violence with which we're currently bombarded. And it's unseemly to "spke the football," as the president said. This is code for "releasing the photos won't help my re-election campaign." So those pictures will remain highly classified.

Of course, that's good news for those who want to see the photos. Oh yeah, classify them! Make 'em secret! The more secret, the better!

Because the more secret those photos are, the better chance you'll soon be able to pull 'em up on Wikileaks.

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