A reader from Seoul says Stripes is misusing the word "troop." Properly, troop should refer to a unit of soldiers, not individual servicemembers. He referred to a headline that said: "Eight troops killed in Iraq."
Generally speaking, the reader is correct. Here's what the Associated Press Style Book says: "A troop, in its singular form, is a group of people, often military, or animals. Troops, in the plural, means several such groups." Stripes' own style book reinforces that concept.
We're all proud of our children's accomplishments in school, and it's natural to want to share that information. Newspapers accommodate that desire to varying degrees. For Stars and Stripes, that means annual special sections dedicated to graduation proceedings in the DODDs high schools, or reports on spelling bee or sports standouts.
Blog contributor Maj. Dorian de Wind (Ret.) asked:
"What (and why) is generally the policy of news media when it comes to publishing the 'real' names of Letters to the Editor writers and of other opinion or editorial contributors." He rarely sees letters signed "anonymously" and wonders if some writers might be using fake names. He also understands, as I do, that some writers wouldn't want their names published when writing about "certain matters."
Every so often a reader will complain to Stars and Stripes about an item that
appears every day in the Mideast and Europe editions: It’s a daily dispatch from
The Associated Press reporting how many deaths of U.S. servicemembers have
occurred in Iraq and, when available, the names of those fallen.
In case you didn't know it, anyone can make a suggestion for Stars and Stripes or point out an error. And no item can be too mundane to take a hit.
A reader in Iraq who wants to be known only as a combat convoy driver with the handle Iraqijack, scratched his head when he read, of all things, the sunrise and sunset times on the Middle East edition's weather page. They were off by an hour, he noted in a message to the paper.
