> The House report claims Snowden lied saying he left military training due to broken legs, and instead washed out due to "shin splints". Gellman objects, saying he has a documented diagnosis for Snowden saying he was discharged with "bilaterial tibial stress fractures". But tibial stress fractures are a form --- a common form --- of shin splint.
A stress fracture is a broken bone. Tibial stress fractures are (among the more severe and longer-healing) manifestations of medial tibial stress syndrome ("shin splints"). So, Gellman's evidence is consistent with the House reports claim that Snowden washed out due to "shin splints", but nevertheless rebuts the House reports claim that Snowden lied about broken legs.
Essentially, the House report is itself lying in a fairly brazen fashion (and counting on ignorance of the meaning of the terms used to get away with it) by claiming that they can paint something as a lie based on a fact which is itself entirely consistent with the claim it is supposed to demonstrate is a lie.
Having gone through military basic training (and later being peripherally involved with recruiting), we had people wash out relatively often for 'shin splints'.
If you washed out it would have to be severe -- if the shin splints were minor you'd simply be given time to heal and the ability to rollback into the next class. But even if they were severe, we (recruits and staff alike) called them 'shin splints', not 'broken legs'.
However technically true Snowden's usage of 'my legs were broken' may have been, we would never have called it 'broken legs' unless he'd suffered a macroscopic fracture or a break (in other words, something that'd normally require a cast, splint, or crutches).
So the fact that Snowden did so is actually quite consistent with the HPSCI's assertions about his 'narcissistic' and 'self-serving' nature. There /should/ be little shame in washing out for shin splints, certainly not enough to be deceptive about it when your credibility is about to be closely examined for something that is theoretically far more important to you.
He also said 'it wasn't shin splints' when the conceit to this thread appears to be that 'shin splints are just a different way of saying bone fractures in your legs'.
We have Barton Gellman defending Snowden by saying that he was diagnosed with 'bilateral tibial stress fractures'. But, this is consistent with shin splints (albeit more severe) and could be the result of trying to maintain the exercise regimen that gave you shin splints in the first place. But nor are bilateral tibial stress fractures something you get in a training accident or other single event -- it's a repetitive injury that you get when your body cannot sustain the level of demand being placed on it over time.
It still hurts like a bitch if you let it get to that point, and Snowden would not be anywhere near the first or the last to wash out of a military training pipeline due to that. But he sells it like he broke his legs in some sort of accident at a single SF training event, not like the exact same type of repetitive stress injury that has been a common cause of medical washouts in many other men and women attempting the same training (even for ceremonial duties! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2807419/).
A wrinkle: Snowden was 18X, so he wasn't doing standard basic training, but accelerated basic/advanced combined. So a shin splint injury that might have been manageable in normal basic training, in 18X...?
That's just it, I heard it was training for SF, so I thought he had literally broken his legs, their training isn't just doing a bunch of running so it would certainly be plausible to break a leg doing something like fast-roping out of a helo or a parachute jump.
I haven't gone through anything close to SF training but wash-outs happen all the time; you heal up and generally get to try again, since it's not like you can just stay with your class, and the military services need SOF-quality forces bad enough that if you're otherwise qualified to get into that pipeline then it's beneficial for them to give you that opportunity.
On the other hand in a basic training environment, if you get shin splints you may get a medical profile or light duty chit saying not to do certain types of exercise (or even to wear different shoes) to give your lower legs time to heal. But if it's bad enough you can be pulled out of training completely and put in a holding company to heal up properly and then roll back into a class.
I was briefly in a holding company for something else; there were recruits there who had been out of training due to shin splints for months, usually when they refused to go to medical when they first started noticing symptoms and tried to tough it out.
I think both sides are spinning. It's clear to me how the House Report lawyers Snowden's training history, but where you see Gellman rebutting a House Report claim that no bone fractures were involved in Snowden's separation from the army, I see Gellman failing to acknowledge that a tibial stress fractures are a common medical diagnosis for "shin splints".
I think it's clearer in light of Snowden's original claim to the Guardian that he left training after "breaking both legs in a training accident" (it is possible, but unlikely, that Snowden acquired stress fractions as a result of a single discrete training event --- but Snowden was getting a lot of mileage out of the ambiguity).
> I see Gellman failing to acknowledge that a tibial stress fractures are a common medical diagnosis for "shin splints".
Even if "shin splints" weren't the common name for a different and lesser less severe diagnosis, those wouldn't be equivalent.
The House report would still be dishonest in calling Snowden a liar for a statement that is completely accurate. And Gellman would still be completely dishonest (even with the failure to acknowledge that you suggest) in painting the House report as dishonest for dishonestly calling Snowden a liar for a statement that is completely accurate.
This isn't "both sides spinning". It is one side outright lying and using misdirection to get away with that, and one side pointing this out without any misdirection.
The acknowledgement (even if it were accurate) that you fault Gellman for giving is irrelevant to the point in dispute, which isn't "Snowden actually had something that can be described with the term 'shin splints'", but "Snowden was dishonest in saying that he had broken legs". His discharge report indicates that he had broken bones in both legs. Snowden was not dishonest. At best, if one accepts your description, the House report relied on people's ignorance to sell a different, nonconflicting-but-also-not-incorrect description of the events as a conflicting one so that it could call Snowden a liar; at worst it actually invented a false narrative to call Snowden a liar, but whether it was a false narrative or simply relied on a false presentation of conflict, the House report relied on deliberate falsehood to call Snowden a liar.
> I think it's clearer in light of Snowden's original claim to the Guardian that he left training after "breaking both legs in a training accident" (it is possible, but unlikely, that Snowden acquired stress fractions as a result of a single discrete training event --- but Snowden was getting a lot of mileage out of the ambiguity).
Its not all that unlikely that the stress fractures, if not being acquired, became acute enough to cause him to leave training as a result of a single discrete training event, and its even less unlikely that he became unable to train and sought or was referred to medical attention as a result of pain and lack of ability to take weight occurring in the immediate context of a discrete training event and in the course of being diagnosed, was not disabused of the notion that the training event in which the injury was recognized was not necessarily the sole or major cause. So, its not improbable that Snowden's description to the Guardian was accurate, and even more likely that it accurately reflected the facts as he knew them.
Am I wrong for seeing this ultimately as spliting hairs here? This whole argument seems.....unecessary. What is gained by being this parsimonious with how his legs were damaged?
A stress fracture is a broken bone. Tibial stress fractures are (among the more severe and longer-healing) manifestations of medial tibial stress syndrome ("shin splints"). So, Gellman's evidence is consistent with the House reports claim that Snowden washed out due to "shin splints", but nevertheless rebuts the House reports claim that Snowden lied about broken legs.
Essentially, the House report is itself lying in a fairly brazen fashion (and counting on ignorance of the meaning of the terms used to get away with it) by claiming that they can paint something as a lie based on a fact which is itself entirely consistent with the claim it is supposed to demonstrate is a lie.