This message was self-deleted by its author

[MineralMan]

177. Assuming he is an actual active-duty soldier

at all. As near as I can tell, that has not even been established.

It is my opinion, as a retired journalist, that this story is poorly researched and written. At the time of its publication, it was still unclear whether this person was alive or dead and no confirmation that he is even in the military. The Facebook post was just a launching platform for a bunch of speculation about our supposed special forces operations in Syria. There's no evidence presented of that, either. The only thing that led to all this speculation was some guy's post on Facebook, which may or may not even be a true statement by someone who may or may not actually be in the military.

Weak sauce, journalistically, all around. No editor of a responsible publication would approve such a poorly-supported article.