How the media blew it

I first heard that there had been another IED strike on a Viking early Wednesday evening, long before there was any media coverage. This was from Thomas Harding of The Daily Telegraph , who told me two soldiers had been killed, and more injured. At that time, we did not know that Lt-Col Rupert Thorneloe had been killed. Thus, to us, there was only one story – another example of men being killed in the perilously inadequate Viking, so lightly armoured that it is incapable of resisting even a minor IED hit under the belly or tracks. As the details of Thorneloe's death came in the following morning, to us the tenor of the story did not change. In fact, it reinforced the line and made it both more tragic and more outrageous. Although every death counts, there is still something special about a senior officer – and a very highly... [read full story]                    

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