Gary Sinise Criticizes Media Portrayal Of Iraqi War

Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor) credits 911 for getting him involved in the war effort.

"I started doing a lot more looking into what was going on," he told NewsMax.com. I wanted to know why this happened. I knew that our military was going to start getting fairly active, and I wanted to do something, I wanted to help out."

Sinise joined the USO and with his band Lt. Dan Band he visits stationed men and women of the military to entertain them. He's also traveled to Iraq, a trip that prompted him to found Operation Iraqi Children. Their goal is to provide Iraqi children with much needed school supplies and a positive view of the United States. "I believe that these kids are the future of Iraq, and so many in that part of the world have been raised to think bad things about Americans or bad things about Western culture."

One thing Sinise wishes he could influence is the media's constant focus on the negative aspects of the war, rather then the positive ones. "I'm in touch with dozens of military service members over there who are working quite diligently on their mission, accomplishing positive things, making progress, and who have a dedication and belief that what they are doing is helping, and therefore their morale is high. Yet in so many media reports we get a completely opposite view of what's happening with our military service members, that they are demoralized or broken or their morale is low and whatnot."

He continued, "Granted, there probably are service members over there who don't have as high morale as somebody else might. There are a lot of people over there, and they're not going to all feel the same thing. But there's an overwhelming sense from a lot of the people that I deal with who are working cooperatively with the Iraqis on a day-to-day basis. They are making progress, and they're accomplishing positive things. Therefore they feel good about their mission, and some people who have gone would go back again."

The rest of the article, in which Sinise talks more about the war in Iraq, can be found at NewsMax.com.

Discuss this news item at Talk CSI!
 Add CSI Files RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a Desperate Housewives fan? Then visit GetDesperate.com!