Quote:

I've bitten my tongue so hard that I'm chewing on pieces. Monkey, I don't know how much pull you still have here but I'm relying on your godlike powers of moderation to protect me.

I'm a cynical bastard and believe in nothing, especially not when it's insensitive to ask for further details, especially when the information that has been released thus far come entirely from a self-published webpage and a trickle of facts that don't jibe, especially when they're accompanied by a flurry of self-serving publicity.

We're told that these personal facts - which we know because we've been told - shouldn't distract from a businesslike demeanor. A party was planned, there's costs involved. That's certainly plausible. Then there's things that aren't businesslike at all, such as this, contrasted with things that are so businesslike it's almost frightening, such as this.

It seems that what's required for an agency to start business is a webpage and a published phone number. It's good to know then that while she was crying on the phone, per Luke, her partner was so businesslike that at that very moment he was registering her new domain. Mike dies on November 29, the webpage is registered November 30, it comes online December 1. Very businesslike.

Per that interview with Luke, she was informed the same day that Mike died, then was sent a letter. In the case of KIA, Marines notify the next-of-kin by personal visit. One way or another, she claims to have been notified, which means his death is now public record. Yet I looked high and low not just on the CNN site but the Department of Defense's website as well. Not satisfied, I called the number at the top of the page. No Marine named Mike, Michael, or any variation died on November 29 or any day adjacent to it, according to the public information officer I spoke to.

jrv, you can censure this if you want, since I know you like Nicole. There is no evidence that not just her fiancee but any Marine named "Mike" (or whose name even begins with an M!) died in Fallujah on that day. Given the aforementioned flurry of publicity, I think we've been had, unless someone can come up with a secret mission which would cause a Marine's death to be concealed in the single bloodiest conflict since this war began.





Another item you missed, smilingarab is the next of kin notification. If you go to war and you're KIA or MIA, the military will notify a father, mother, wife or husband first (whatever is designated as next of kin on the DD Form 93 in a service member's personnel file. Fiance/Fiancees do NOT get the same notice because they're not considered NOK in the DoD regulations AND in the legal system (The family would have to tell the fiance/fiancee about the service member's fate. Besides that, I find it very hard to believe that Mike could get past all the DoD firewalls that block the accessing of porn and other websites that Uncle Sam doesn't want soldiers to be able to access (e.g. white supremacists. bomb making, drug use, etc.)