About the Fired Contractor

While I feel badly for the contractor and her husband who were fired by their military contractor employer after a picture she took of flag-draped coffins was widely published after it appeared in a Seattle newspaper, I don't know what else could be expected.

I mean, if you choose to work for a military contractor, you agree to the rules. Everyone knows there is a specific rule about even permitting the press to take and publish such photographs, so the military isn't going to be pleased when someone working for its own contractors does so. The real news, sadly, would be if she were not fired.

Was it an important photograph that both showed a certain solemn indignity (along with an eerie warehouse nature) and some of the true costs of this war? Indeed. And this woman sounds like a very nice lady who goes above and beyond her usual job description by helping the grieving GIs who've just lost a comrade. She did us a service.

I'd like to think she'll be hired by someone else with greater vision and integrity than the contractor/Rumsfeld/the White House, but I can't be surprised that she was terminated. I can't even believe she should be terribly surprised by it.