Ninety-five hundred uncensored copies of Anthony Shaffer’s book were destroyed on Sep. 27, as overseen by the Defense department of the United States. The memoir, written by Anthony Shaffer, details special military operations of the Afghanistan war. The book was reviewed by military officers before being published as an okay that there was no classified information presented in it.  However, when the Department of Defense set out to destroy the entirety of the first printing, it was clear to the world that there had been a dire mistake.

Shawn Lance is an English teacher at Randall who was one of the first to inform students on the actions of the government.

“The whole reason this happened was a lack of communication,” Lance said.  “They should’ve never approved it [to be published].”

As the first printing of the book burned to cinders, there was another censored printing on the way from St. Martin’s Press, ready for distribution.  However, Lance said this is no better.

“I hate [censorship]” Lance said. “It’s a way to control people. We should be given as much information as possible and be able to make up our own minds.”

However, Jan Weston, a geography teacher at Randall, said she thinks the Obama administration was right to censor the book.

“Keeping sensitive U.S. secrets from the public domain is a matter of national security,” Weston said.  “I don’t consider that censorship.”

While Weston admits that some of the censored excerpts weren’t extremely dangerous to print, others were a definite breach in security.

“One must remember that our country risks losing the personal trust of our closest allies and crucial intelligence informants if every sensitive issue risks being published,” Weston said.

Although both Weston and Lance agree that censorship is unfair, Weston said she stands by the government’s decision.

“As the mother of an active duty soldier whose battalion suffered more losses than any other in Afghanistan, I’ll always put lives over someone’s curiosity,” Weston said.