Just Another Stripe (Down the Toilet of Life)

"This case illustrates perfectly the absurdity of attempting to regulate military blogs."

Perhaps we should consider sending Hugh Hewitt to have a meeting with commanders, as he did last week with TV execs. They just do not seem to have a grasp on what the blogosphere is all about, or how powerful it has become.

Now he's just another whiner, complaining to everyone who will listen that everyone has freedom of speech except him.

Greyhawk,

I think the point is write for your mom and your commander, 'cuz like you said the Chairman doesn't care. It is also good to remember that the right to speak does not supersede the responsibility for a commander to maintain morale. In Hartley's case he was openly venting about the mistakes and missteps common in military operations. At some point that becomes counter-productive and his Commander made that call.

Cordially,

Uncle J

Military Matters

Somehow I think the assitant produce manager or a "deli clerk" would get fired for a blog like that. An E-5 is a "leader"...definitely not the attitude of a "leader". Definitely not the kind of guy I want leading my daughter. She has done her time "manning" the gun on the HMMV without complaint. I would tell her to take a turn in the brig before going outside the wire with that clown.

A while ago we had an ongoing discussion concerning whether MILBLOGGERS had more "freedom of speech" than civilian bloggers. The example given was the Google blogger who was fired.

What you quoted up there is a disgrace. Anyone who produces that much detail of their operation should be shut down. This is exactly how it is in business as well. If I discuss our financials or future business plans, I get fired. Plain and simple.

The only protection for free speech is from the Government blocking individuals. Not corporations or the military blocking discussions about confidential/OPSEC information.

Guess I'll never know what you posted today. I always do as I am told!

In my day someone who admitted this clown's um extracurricular pre and post mission activity would be dumped with some kind of 'we don't want this guy around' discharge. He keeps flapping his gums and he's going to end up with a Big Chicken Dinner.
I've heard a lot, right up until maybe mid-2004, about how some of the guys with entrance tests high enough to have qualified for OCS in my day being put on waiting lists to enlist. This feller must have slipped through the cracks or is trying very hard to prove that one can have high scores and no sense.

Can't see what he said that had anything to do with OPSEC. They knocked down a wall? Had a wrong address?

I have read Jason Hartley's blog from beginning to end, and have found it quite humorous and insightful. Admittedly, it didn’t portray his unit in a particularly good light all of the time, but I would rather have the opportunity to read the honest ramblings of a soldier than the drivel that comes from some blogs that sound like Army press releases. Not everyone is always of a good cheer, mistakes happen, and gosh darn it, sometimes soldier’s write about things that happen or that they did. I didn’t see anything that isn’t either common knowledge or easily found through the public domain. Just because it can be embarrassing, doesn’t make it classified or OPSEC. So they hit the wrong house…oops. That doesn’t give the bad guys the knowledge where they will hit next. I think he was right to shut down his blog when asked to by his commander, but was he ever ordered to stop writing his friends and family? Think about that…is that what is next in order to prevent embarrassing information from getting out?

Greyhawk,

A couple points:

1) Hartley is a funny guy. I enjoyed reading his posts.
2) I saw no OPSEC violations. If someone else sees them, let me know where.
3) Sure, the blog portrayed his unit in an unflattering light at times. But I think shutting the blog down for "morale reasons" or whatever justification Hartley's commander used, based on that particular snippet, was an over-reaction, and that the same kinds of justifications many officers tried to use to shut down Bill Mauldin during World War II would apply here.
4) If I'm correct in my belief that our success or failure in Iraq will be determined by the extent the American people continue to support it -- and I'm pretty sure I am -- then we ought to look at the possibility that voices like Hartley's appeal to a segment of the American people in ways that other blogs don't. There's a good possibility that there are a bunch of punks out there who think that the military and service is only for ignorant tools, young men and women who're too stupid to work at MacDonald's. Whatever else Hartley's blog does, it proves this is not so. I hope that Hartley's CO was aware of the possible benefits of that blog as a recruiting tool among that demographic.

And you know what else?

We've all masturbated and shit our pants before.

f

As Greyhawk notes with tongue-in-cheek, if this boy's sample of how he would write is typical, the bulk of it fits the definition of insipidity; thus, his criticism of others is misplaced.

I agree that I see no OpSec issues in this entry, but to expose/explain them would draw attention to the specific faults and compound the error; therefore, there is insufficient evidence to fault the command action.

Potty talk (humor?) may entertain the immature, but countless people have observed the fact that a soldier's life consists of brief bursts of frantic activity punctuated by extended boredom; no new ground has been broken in these "revelations".

Interesting that he uses breeches instead of breaches; I suspect it was unintentional, but it was the only real humor I observed in the passage.

"We've all masturbated and shit our pants before."

A datum of surpassing unimportance, but perhaps that's true . It's also true that there used to be many fewer people who assumed that others took an interest in such matters, and would proceed, toddler-like, to tell everyone within earshot about it. There are few so boring as those tedious persons who delight in shocking the 'squares'.

Socialism_is_error,

Yeah, the potty humor may be immature. But so are all of the movies by the Farrelly Brothers. And whatever being immature is, it's not evil.

Anyways.

Hartley is putting his life on the line out there in Iraq, and while he may be immature in some ways, he's mature where it counts. A lot more mature than most young Americans his age, sitting around their college dormitories drinking Zima, bitching about their workload, and protesting against globalization because they think it'll get them laid. The readers of this blog have much more in common with Hartley than they do with 90% of guys his age. We shouldn't forget that in our criticisms.

f

Read Hartley's Blog regularly. As a former 11B I could definitely relate to his posts. He captured the comradery and lifestyle of a young single grunt extremely well. The difference does seem to be with the indivudual commander. Colby Buzzel sp?, wrote similar stuff with even more combat info and he became a celebrity. Hartley does it and becomes a target. Perhaps it has someting to do with the fact that he is a Guardsman and his writing could affect his CO's aspirations back home. Or not. In any event, that one post above, while a bit childish and vulgar, does capture the essense of a young light infantryman and has the tone of a conversation between he and his buddies.

First things first--your comment gate blocked my blog's URL. The "questionable content" that blocked it is the domain of my website!

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I tried to help the kid out, but sometimes you can do something actively dumb. In Hartley's case it was (1) telling the world where his unit was going on his blog before it was declasses, freaking out his chain of command, and (2) continuing to post after he got told not to.

There are ways to do such things, and Hartley's a very entertaining writer, but he took an unnecessary risk and paid for it. Not for his political politics, for not recognizing when to launch a WP and when to slink.
I've written about it over at my place--our community doesn't Article 15 as much as others, but we have ways of helping our shipmates that work as effecively at times. The hardest part for some guys after a mast is understanding why they were there besides "they were out to get me"--or getting over that in any case.

But, like I said, he's a good writer. I'll buy a book. I'll just wince at one spot or two when he discusses his fate.