A 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers sent an e-mail criticizing Bush to Steve Gilliard's blog. Less than 24 hours later, she was court-martialed for it. This continues the tradition of the military going after any of its members who criticize the president even on their own time, but encouraging those who make public endorsements.

Those clever with the net can probably still find the text of the letter in Google's cache, but as Steve has chosen to pull the full name and the publication of the letter to try to keep this brave, but foolhardy engineer from excessive vengeance, and the officer herself has made it unavailable from her LiveJournal page, I won't be republishing it here. Once it's over, for better or for worse, I may revisit this decision, as I did archive it.

She did publish an apology, of sorts, for speaking out of anger, and using the fact of her rank to give her words more weight when she was speaking only for herself. I think the latter part of that apology is somewhat misplaced, as it wasn't the rank that gave the rant weight, but the fact that she was part of the group that worked on preparing the protections around the city, was (and is) available to help when needed — help that was never accepted. It wasn't that she was a 2nd Lieutenant; it was that she was an Engineer.

Hat tip to Pharyngula.