A few days ago, a U.S. soldier stationed in Afghanistan posted these photos to his Tumblr account, along with an explanation:

Some jerk sent us two boxes of this awful book (SPOILER ALERT: George Washington – Patriot; George Soros – Pinhead) instead of anything soldiers at a remote outpost in Afghanistan might need, like, say, food or soap. Just burned the whole lot of them on my Commander’s orders.

The post quickly went viral, and the soldier, who does not blog under his real name, felt the need to respond to some of the reactions. He clarified that while he understood the issues surrounding the burning of books, these were torched for practical reasons. At his remote location there is no way to return the books, and extra space is at a minimum. All unwanted items are disposed of, mostly by burning.

He added, “I won’t say I didn’t take pleasure in removing a few copies of this bigoted twerp’s writings from circulation, but the reason for doing so was military necessity.”

If you’d like to send the troops things they actually need, you can do so via Operation Shoebox.