Tearing Off "The Black Patch"

I'd like to discuss a forwarded email I received from my mom called, "The Black Patch"

First of all, I would like to make sure people understand that, yes, I'm against the Iraq Conflict, but I'm not against the soldiers, and all that. I know that close friends of mine all showed up for duty in the National Guard and Air Force when we left high school and some of then ended up in this conflict that hopefully will end soon and these folks can come home.

That being said, I'd like to point out something about this "Black Patch".

There's alot of emails flying around that declare "THIS SHOULD BE ON THE COVER OF ALL THE MAJOR NEWSPAPERS" and all that.
Well, newspapers do have a right to publish real material, and not computer generated material.

Lets take a look at the picture of the 'renegade' who apparently had these patches all made up on his uniform:

Great, huh? A classic soldier shot...but lets take a closer look at those "patches"

It'd be a safe bet to assume these patches would be sewn the same way as the ol' Stars and Stripes would be, correct? But upon closer inspection, these patches almost look...*gasp* computer generated!!!

Whoever did make this picture did spend alot of time shading those patches, and they did a pretty good job, but seriously, its a fake. THATS WHY YOU DONT SEE PICS LIKE THIS IN THE MAJOR NEWSPAPERS...

Do you really want a picture that belongs in the major newspapers?

This was from a bicycle race in Mexico a few months ago, where a drunk driver avoided a roadblock and ran into this group of racers, at least killing one of them and seriously injuring (obviously) several others. Yet this picture wasn't in the major newspapers either.

I get it --- these Military forwards are supposed to be a morale booster for the public --- I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea about the purpose of this forward --- it just is really silly to send around things that are fake.

These are the sort of things that start to create all the ugly things that are starting to define us as Americans...

Before sending these around, make sure they're real, Mom!!!!