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Don't be too hasty in your judgement. It could be she's shallow and uncaring, but it could also be that she's depressed and not thinking. Depression makes people do incomprehensible things. Although it certainly looks that cold, selling the medals and uniforms and getting out of town may not have been intentional disregard for his sacrifice but rather an effort to get away from a source of emotional pain. She may see the medals not as symbols of what the man has given to her through his sacrifice but more as ever-present reminders or even cheap substitutes for a human being who was taken from her.

Which is worse- a sister who doesn't understand the medals and mementos enough to value them, or someone who feels the need to further embarass the soldier's memory by publishing "dirty laundry" about his family in the paper? It's a good thing the man purchased the items and found a way to return them to someone whom the soldier loved, but why did the press need to know about it?

I absolutely think that woman needs to be exposed, like tied to a stake in her neighborhood with a sign on her neck.

She deserves all the bad publicity she is going to get, and Medea Benjamin will come over and pay all her bills and Adam Kokesh will have her speak at his next protest and WWP will write an editorial for her praising her for not agreeing with Bush’s imperialism!

She deserves what she is going to get.

The fact that he left everything to his sister and not his mother or fiance makes me think that he and his sister were very close.

I agree that it was probably depression and need to escape from the fact of his death that led her to sell them.

Or, I could be wrong. But I was thinking the same way you were when I read the article.

"Don't be too hasty in your judgment."

Most people, should they follow your advise, would be left with no judgment at all and feel discomfort. So they prefer a quick one, and truth be d-mned.

Thank you for your insightful and moral observation. The outcome is indeed shocking and troubling, but the story is ultimately about subtle manipulation of the public by newspapers. This story could've have easily been about the irrationality and out-of-character behaviors that severely depressed people adopt.

It well may be that the woman was lamenting, "I was depressed... I don't know what I was thinking, I can't believe now what I have done... And I sold.. on eBay." Sounds like soul-searching, but cut out the middle part and arrive at "I was depressed... and sold on eBay," which is coldblooded egotism.

I don't know the details here, but the reporting is certainly at the level of a TV soap and uses the same tactics to pinch the readers' hearts.

It does amaze me how easily people, even conservatives, blame others without any basis. Whatever happened to the Commandment against serving as false witness?