I have been an infantry soldier for a long time. Decades, in fact, have flown by since I first donned the uniform. In those years, in peace (training for war), and war, I learned a few things. First, you can get away with a lot in life if you have an abundant supply of socks and underwear. Second, while there may be a higher power, the evidence suggests that this power is impartial. Third, one should never believe the initial reports of your scouts. I have more, but I think that this last point is as far as we need to go today.

"Never believe the first report of your scouts," was a message taught to me as a very young captain by one of the best officers I ever knew. "They will tell you things that they believe, but these are lies, they are always lies … wait, watch, and then figure it out," he told me on more than one occasion. He was my battalion commander and, as one of his company commanders, I listened and learned. He was right.

Now, you need to understand that in any line battalion, the scouts are often the favored children. These, after all, are the best soldiers you have. They go out with the least protection, and they have the best fieldcraft. They risk their lives so that everyone else can understand what is going on in front of the unit, and so they are held as something better than the norm. Despite his words, my commander truly loved the scouts.

He would greet them, on the rare social occasions when ranks mixed, like a father. They were "his boys." But he would use those socially lubricated events for another purpose, to teach.

"You motherfkers lie to me all the time," he would say, to a collection of junior sergeants and specialists.

The new ones (who had not heard this before) would express dismay, confusion, and deny that they did any such thing.

"But you do, you always fking lie," the boss would continue.

Now, consider, not only is there a great disparity in rank, but age-wise we are talking about the oldest man in the unit, the Lieutenant Colonel who is about 42, and young enlisted men of about 18-20 years, and only one or two of those years spent in uniform. They took these accusations hard, but then the boss would continue.

"When you are out there, you send me reports of what you think that you are seeing. You are out there, way out there and unsupported, in the chaos and the confusion, and you think that you are seeing a whole brigade coming at us, so that is what you tell me. But you are fking lying! All you really saw was a few dozen men at a specific gap in the trees … or you did see a whole brigade, but it was there for you to see on purpose, or you saw something between the two and you fking interpreted it for me. STOP IT!"

He would then continue, in an almost conspiratorial whisper, "I want you to tell me, exactly and only, what you actually see, with precision. Boys, send me lots of little dots. Don't worry, for now, what all the dots look like when you put them together. That's my job. All you fking have to do is send me small, specific, dots. When I put them all on a page, on a map, they will come together for me and I will see a picture that the whole bunch of you fkers painted for me. You are out there scattered across miles, and life is hard out there. But if each of you, separately, send me those fking little dots, the minute ones that you yourself see, I swear to fking god I will put them together. Trust me, and I will trust you. But it will take a little time … be patient with me and I'll be patient with you."

If you were not aware, in the infantry we use the word "fk" as a fairly fundamental element of the English language. I've known three star generals who could make the Big Lebowski step back in awe on that count. (Ahem, Gen R…) But I digress.

The key point is that you could give that same speech to a room full of cub reporters and it would be equally as valid. The salient instructions are the same. Report what you see, and only what you see, and you cannot go far wrong.

But now, in the wake of the Boston bombing attack, I want to train my focus not the reporters, but on you, the consumers. You all need to be a little more like my old boss. He was, well, fking patient.

Left and right, we all intellectually know that skepticism should always be applied to any breaking news story. But emotionally, too many seem to let go of the corollary, the understanding that the initial reports are always wrong. This should be your going-in position, not something that is remembered later. It is a lack of skepticism that, inevitably, leads to disillusionment with those reporting the stories, when those stories must be revised in light of new facts. But that is the wrong reaction. Like I said, you need to be more like my old boss.

He wasn't really mad at the scouts when he talked the way I just described. Indeed, he loved them like sons. And as a matter of fact, he gave some variant of that same damned speech to the youngest scouts about every four or five months. He was saying it to teach them what he already knew. Initial reports must be fragmentary, because "fast" and "accurate" are naturally opposed to each other. Because of this, you must stick to the smallest things to keep both. Modern American journalists, by and large, are pretty good at this. It is at the level past that where we run in to trouble.

Journalists reported small things about Benghazi, and generally kept the reporting mostly accurate. But when new facts came to light and minor corrections had to be made, some people started screaming, "Conspiracy!" Along the same lines, a young female American diplomat was just killed in Afghanistan and initial reports had it that she was in a vehicle when attacked. That later was corrected to note that she was on foot, and already some from the other end of the spectrum are muttering, "Conspiracy." That is not the case in either situation, it is just the normal situation of reporters (or "scouts" if you like) reporting as best they can and then updating the story as more and better facts become available.

So now we have Boston, and already just a day afterwards, theories, counter-theories, and conspiracies are starting to swirl. Initial reports by some outlets were, in fact, as wrong as they were sensationalist, but even now many of those have faded. As time passes, with each small accuracy, we are led to a better picture. Be like my old boss, then-Lieutenant Colonel Tim Lynch, and be patient. Know that despite everyone's best intentions, a lot of false reports come through at the beginning. Know that it takes some time to filter the shit from the shinola in order to get a good picture about what is going on.

And know, to guide you in this process, that the first report is always wrong. If we can educate all Americans to remember that fact, we might just be on our way to a more useful society.

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