Personal Plea – Heartbreaking Consequences

Below is a message which I’ve steadfastly spread and adhered to for nearly 2 years since I began to Honor Them. Please read it in its entirety and the heartbreaking story which follows it.

The United States of America holds one of the most powerful military forces in the world. It is because of this that so many countries turn to us in their time of need. Sadly whether at war or in peace time, we do lose many brave sons and daughters who serve our great country. In a time of war, as we are now, those numbers increase. This is an inevitable yet heartbreaking part of war. When this happens, as a country we grieve. However, while we may be saddened by the loss of yet another one of our courageous men and women, that can’t possibly compare to the grief felt by their friends and family of the fallen. It is important that we put the feelings of their loved ones first, above all else.

The amount of posts on both Facebook and Twitter which pay tribute to our fallen heroes has been growing. In these posts many times the fallen hero’s name is given and sometimes even include their unit and branch as well. Normally I would say this is a wonderful thing, as part of my mission to Honor Them is to make sure that we all Honor Those Fallen so they are Never Forgotten for the tremendous sacrifice they’ve made on our behalf.

With that being said, an recurring problem for quite some time has been posts which are releasing sensitive information prior to the Department of Defense making an official release. It is important to know that the DOD releases this information only after the family has been notified. Losing a loved one is hard enough on these family members. The least we can all do is offer them the courtesy of making sure they receive notice in the most respectful and dignified manner possible.

Please remember and respect OPSEC (Operations Security) and the extremely sensitive nature of the information you have at your fingertips before you post anything, or relay information of any kind in any way, shape or form. Prematurely posting details regarding a casualty that a family member might see prior to being notified by the proper authorities is nothing I wish on any of the families of our fallen heroes.

Our brave and selfless troops fight to protect our freedoms and liberties. Let’s all work together to protect their families from any further hurt.

For the most part I think a majority of people understand the importance of the above message. However, I still find quite a few people who wish to debate the issue with me. Their reasons vary from “our local news reported it” or “my family readiness group posted it” or “I know someone in the unit and everyone is talking about it” or the one that makes me cringe the most “I saw it on Facebook and/or Twitter”.

Here is my problem with the above excuses – quite honestly that’s what they are is excuses, because they are not justifiable reasons to share sensitive information – the sources these people are obtaining this highly sensitive information from are not the Department of Defense. The DOD is the only entity which is permitted to put out a first notice/release of the death of one of our brave fallen heroes. No one else has that right, nor should they assume that they do.

This brings me to the reason for this blog entry. On April 3, 2012 we lost Fort Carson soldier, Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown due to wounds caused by an improvised explosive device. This in itself is tragic enough, however tragedy struck a second time for the family of Staff Sgt. Brown. Before I explain what happened, I’d like to give a little of background as to why I find the soon to be mentioned incident even more troubling and completely avoidable.

On April 4^th I received a public request on Twitter asking me to honor and pay remembrance to Staff Sgt. Brown. My first reaction was to check the DOD site to see if I had perhaps missed a release. I was of course concerned when I saw that an official release had not yet been made regarding Staff Sgt. Brown. I sent this person (an Army wife) a private message requesting that she please delete her tweet with the soldiers name and explained my reasons why. I was surprised when I was met with some resistance on the subject. The reasons she gave me was that Staff Sgt. Brown was in her husband’s unit, their family readiness group had posted it and the family had been notified. I still chose to not publicly tweet the information and explained to her that in my way of Honoring Them, I will not post information on a death until I am 100% positive – meaning the DOD has made official release – that the family has been notified.

The debate ensued and I was surprised to received messages from other ‘wives of soldiers in the unit’ who requested that I pay public tribute to Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown. I have and will continue to Honor all of those brave we lose, however I will never do it until the DOD has made a release. It is because of this that I had to respectfully decline yet again and also explain my reasons why. I did find it odd that I received so many requests in such a short period of time (mere hours) for this one soldier and even went back through my messages this morning to make sure my memory wasn’t failing me before I wrote this post. My memory did not fail and I had more than one wife of a soldier requesting I publicly post this brave hero’s death information before the proper authorities had made such a release. An important side note to this is that the official release of Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown’s death was made by the DOD on April 5^th. The day after these requests took place.

This morning I was saw the unfortunate result of what can happen when sensitive information gets into the wrong hands and causes tragic results.  Please click on this link: Wife of Fort Carson Soldier Learns of His Death on Facebook and read how crucial it is that everyone understand and respect OPSEC, and the information that somehow may have fallen into their hands. A similar incident happened in February when the wife of a fallen soldier received a phone call from her friend after reading about the death of the woman’s husband on Facebook.

Folks, my simple message to you is this: OPSEC exists for a reason. Our military forces have grown, thrived and remained strong on the principles of protecting Operations Security. We cannot hinder those who protect and defend us. It is our duty as Americans to use good sensibility with information. There should never be a rush to be the first to post sensitive information. I personally would rather be the last to post information regarding a death and know that the family was taken care of. Whether you serve, know someone who does, are in a military family or just read something on a social networking site, you still don’t have the authority to share the information publicly. No one does. Not until that fateful knock at the door happens, the family of our fallen have been taken care of and The Department of Defense has made an official release. The internet is a powerful tool, it has and can be used as a weapon, please use its strength wisely.

Very respectfully

 ~ Amanda