See links in my post #14. When seriously injured soldiers are relying on the army to provide their medical care, and the same army is ordering them not to talk to the media about appalling conditions in the hospital, and actively interfering with their attempts to do so, their First Amendment rights may still exist philosophically, but they don't exist in reality.
You give up your Constitutional Rights when you enlist. The military gives you back some of them under the UCMJ, but they have restrictions that civilians don't have to worry about.
Agreed.
Our veterans deserve the best possible care, period.
They went outside their chain of command and talked to the media. Probably without all the information...jsut what they saw.
The CSM was within his right to tell them that.
I'm PAO myself and would have said the same thing to the soldiers.