A colleague sent this to me with a challenge to do my wet-blanket schtick and debunk the story. But I didn’t feel like it. It didn’t set off any of my hoax alarms. Nowhere in the story was I enjoined to do anything [except not to dive tugboats at home] or to be afraid of anything. It wasn’t scandalous, it didn’t target an enemy, it was long and complicated instead of short and neatly set up. It asked me to think and examine and understand, and there was no punch line.

But all that thinking about why I didn’t feel the need to check out the story got me curious… and I looked it up on the web.

Seems to check out. (Score another one for my hoax alarm system!)

——Start of Forwarded Message ———
> From: Tresa, Marc
> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 3:28 PM
> Subject: This is so cool – and seems legit…
>
> Don’t forget to follow the link at the bottom of the page
> to view the pictures !!
> http://koti.mbnet.fi/~soldier/index.html
>
>
——End of Forwarded Message ———

[Originally transmitted by e-mail August 22, 2002]