 |  |
 
October 2012
August 2012 July 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003
     |
 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! July 19, 2005
25 TrackBacksUPDATE AND BUMP: This information will remain at or near the top this week. I have also posted the first article looking at the charities I am considering. Read what I’ve found about the Freedom Alliance here. Blogathon 2005 begins at 09:00:00... Read More Blackfive has some information on Daily Kos' newest darling, an Arizona National Guardsman serving in Iraq who is, shall we say, not in favor of the mission: Many, many of you have emailed me about this story. Basically, Specialist Leonard... Read More Is the ACLU completely retarded? I would love to think there was some kind of saving grace for an organization that says it is about protecting civil liberties, but with positions like this…which you KNOW are against the will of the people, I d... Read More A nod from the Captain lets me know, as he points at the stations a few decks below, that he is granting permission to tension the rigs, as he begins speaking to the CO of NIMITZ on a handset. I tell the Conning Officer to pass the word on tensioning... Read More He's onto us. While acknowledging the fact that "there are both good and bad people in the military" Bob has hit upon the terrible secret of US military dominance. We're evil... plain and simple. And don't try any of our prearranged talking points a... Read More Via TalkLeft, of all places: Police apparently came prepared for gang warfare when they sent three squad cars and a helicopter in response to a 911 call. Instead, they found an 11-year-old girl who had thrown a rock to defend herself as neighborhood ... Read More United States oil production share declining- Click for original .pdf. Source: ExxonMobil Energy Outlook (.pdf). --------------------------------- Previous trivia tidbits: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10;... Read More These clerics are more concerned with control than they are with religion, for Allah would never condone these barbaric acts. Read More This is a humor piece with most stuff made up except for the fact that Matt Cooper's wife is a Democratic Party activist and confidant of Sen. Clinton. Why doesn't MSM tell that sort of thing? Anyway, I hope you enjoy the post. Read More This is a humor piece with some made up material but the information, with links, about Matt Cooper's wife being a Democrat activist and confidant of Sen. Clinton is factual. Why doesn't MSM tell us about this sort of thing? Read More First let me say thank you for saving my life!! I am forever grateful!!!! My name is PFC Stephen Tschiderer, and I am currently deployed to Bagdhad, Iraq. Yesterday July 2 2005, I was on patrol and while proving security around my Humvee, I was sh... Read More As speculation and high drama swirls around a possible second vacancy on the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats reasserted demands that President Bush stay away from so-called "extreme right-wing" conservative nominees. "If he is true to his promise, he... Read More In the last 10 years or so the internet world has seen several new phenomenons that have since become house hold terms or phrases. Online auctions and blogging are probably at the top of that list. Who had ever thought of a blog back in 1985? Or an onl... Read More Once again, the Chinese are making the case for the Missile Defense System. This story details the military buildup that the Chinese are engaged in which includes Ballistic missiles. From the story:Over the next several years, Beijing will deploy a Read More As of late I have been trying to evaluate my political standing, something I very much should have done prior to the naming of my blog and entering into this sphere of existence. The problem here is not what I believe, that has not changed, but rathe... Read More Thanks to JR at the Vietnam Veterans Home Page for forwarding this from a fellow veteran from Australia. Thanks also to Greyhawk and Mrs. Greyhawk for the space. Please visit them and put them on your blog roll. Actual exchanges... Read More I think that I shall never see A liver like Ted Kennedy's Brave and resilient, a symbol of might Whilst put to the test night after night Twere it not for the strength of this filter within He'd be yellower Read More Well now, it looks like the Dems get the confirmation fight they were hoping for. The thing is I feel a little be careful what you wish for coming up. Read More Bill Keller, Executive Editor at the New York Times, reports that his reporter Judith Miller is having some issues with prison food and accommodations.Not only is the food causing stomach issues but she had to sleep on a mattress on Read More Imagine you have a 14 year old daughter and you find out that her 23 year old reading teacher has had sex with her in the classroom, his bedroom and the back of his SUV. Then imagine that he gets out on $25,000 bail (which could have meant only $250 ... Read More A member of the MSM (Main Stream Media) staggers into a Washington pub and sits down next to Superboy Joseph Wilson who has a dog lying at his feet. 'Does your dog bite?' asks the blow-dried MSM person. Read More Here's another one that doesn't share your enthusiasm! Read More From a 7/19/05 news article at PennLive.com:Area filmmaker seeks defense aidProf sues him over Kerry documentary DILLSBURG - The producer of a documentary that slammed Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War record and may have helped cost him the presidency is Read More JD at Faces from The Front has done some political interpretation on advice given by a Democrat strategist on using criticism of the war for political gain in 2006. JD seems to be very fluent in Democrat Speake based on his translation skills. Read More Well I made it to Kirkuk. Lots of Helicopter flights were involved, but here I am, safe and in one piece. I was catching up on the blogs and came across this interesting post courtesy of BLACKFIVE. Apparently Bob is a tad bit concerned that every membe... Read More |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
Comments (0) |
|
The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
