Angry Green Beret Slams Gwyneth Paltrow for War Comments

Gwyneth Paltrow should win a medal for dealing with "the meanies on the Internet," an infuriated U.S. Army Green Beret writes in a scathing open letter to the star after she compared her "battles" with people who say rude things about her to the ravages suffered in war.

Sgt. First Class Bryan Sikes, whose neck and back were broken by an IED explosion in Afghanistan in 2008, became angry, like many others, after Paltrow commented during an interview with re/code writer Nellie Bowles that mean comments are "dehumanizing" like war.

"You come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it’s a very dehumanizing thing. It’s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing, and then something is defined out of it,” Paltrow told Bowles. "My hope is, as we get out of it, we’ll reach the next level of conscience."

Sikes, in an open letter to Paltrow printed on ClashDaily.com, tore into the often-criticized star.

"I can only imagine the difficulty of waking up in a 12,000 square foot Hollywood home and having your assistant retrieve your iPhone, only to see that the battery is low and someone on Twitter (the social media concept that you and all of your friends contribute to on an hourly basis to feed your ego and narcissistic ways), has written a mean word or 2 about you," Sikes said. "You’ve hit the nail on the head, war is exactly like that. You should receive a medal for the burden you have carried on your shoulders due to these meanies on social media."

Sikes, sarcastically, said that he can understand how Paltrow and others "in the biz" can be so unsure and mentally weak that they can go on Twitter to compare the difficulty of their lives "to my brothers who have had their limbs ripped off and seen their friends shot, blown up, burned, and disfigured, or wake up every morning in pain — while just starting the day is a challenge."

Further, Sikes told her, it's "dehumanizing" that she considers her life as an "A-list" celebrity to being on the battlefield.

"Let me be the first to burst your bubble," he said. "A long line at Starbucks, your driver being three minutes late, a scuff mark on your $1200 shoes and a mean tweet do not constitute difficulty in the eyes of a soldier. Remember, sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never…be close to what war is."

Paltrow has not responded to his letter, reports the New York Post's Page Six.

Sikes, who is in his late 20s, enlisted in the Army in 2005, The Post reports, and became a Green Beret two years later. He went to Afghanistan in 2007, came home, and then went back to the country in 2008, when he was injured after the vehicle he was riding in rolled over an IED and it exploded.

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