 |  |
 
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! August 16, 2005
32 TrackBacksThe 16 August 2005 Washington Times has an editorial that digs deeper into two prominent Democrats with aspirations for 2008: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New Arkansas). In “Border-control Democrats and Presid... Read More Two Fox News stories caught my eye this morning because of a common word in both, Constitution. Most who pay attention to news out of Iraq will know that those working on the new Iraqi constitution have given themselves a seven day extension to comple... Read More The Clinton Presidential Foundation (CPF) has announced that former President Bill Clinton will soon be releasing a CD containing a compilation of his all-time favorite songs. So many people focus on the supposedly negative aspects of President Clinton... Read More Today's dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny ... and it is time for another Kerry-180 Tuesday! Read More Apparently, Bubba's Presidential Foundation and Trailer Park is releasing a CD of Clinton's favorite music. I saw the article earlier this morning, and the thought ran through my head about what songs should have been included, but Jim beat me to it. Read More Joe Katzman, writing at Winds of Change, links to an excellent article by Chief Petty Officer (CPO) Jeff Edwards (Re... Read More A heart-warming story of courage that gave America a reason to love Canada again has turned sour, as problems mount for two teenage girls who have gone from heroes to pariahs in the course of just one weekend... Read More Today's Christian Science Monitor reports that President Bush has made history by being the first President to go five years without vetoing a single piece of legislation Read More A judge in Ohio feels "threatened" by bloggers reporting on him -- so he threw them in jail incommunicado. Read More Yahoo News reports “Roberts scoffed at equal-pay theory“: As an assistant White House counsel in 1984, John Roberts scoffed at the notion that men and women should earn equal pay in jobs of comparable importance, and he belittled three fe... Read More Another chance for us to put our money where our mouths are. If you care about the troops, PROVE IT. Read More Mr. Esmay talks about those who would prefer to label Islam itself the impediment to peace and democracy. Part of this desire is rooted in a need to finally fight back and let loose, instead of being hobbled by our enemy's shadowy nature, a spread... Read More And so you have deeply antiwar parents, children of the Vietnam era, frustrated and puzzled by their children's desire to join the military...These parents, in turn, had rebelled against the previous generation, their parents, whose formative war exper... Read More Okay troops. Need your help. FReeper Kristinn, whom I had the pleasure of meeting one night outside of Walter Reed, contacted me tonight. In an effort to ride the Cindy Sheehan bandwagon for all it's worth, some left-wing groups are organizing candelig... Read More This is pretty funny upon first consideration, but it also leaves me puzzled as to exactly how it could happen. We all know that Apple invented the iPod, right? Any question about that? I don't recall anyone accusing Apple, Steve Read More The Italians recently arrested 141 people in a security sweep and are preparing to expel more than 700 others with possible ties to terrorism. The moves are part of a recent anti-terror trend by our allies, who apparently took notice of the London bo... Read More Despite the guidance we have offered to the N&O, confusion stills reigns at the paper regarding what to call people who drive cars loaded with explosives into women and children. To his credit, Ted Vaden tries to address the issue in Sunday's pape... Read More Last Saturday, the President once again snubbed the pompous hype whore, yet again, demonstrating an utter lack of sesitivity, and sensibility. In Sheehan's own words, Read More We as a nation are fighting a battle against an enemy who's faith has been exploited by homicidal maniacs. They prey on those who cannot decide for themselves which is right and which is wrong. Read More This is a picture of my dad's dad's dad's dad: -click for larger version- He fought in the Civil War. I have no idea when this picture was taken, but I saw it for the first time on Saturday.... Read More Think beyond the NCAA to all the professional team names that might eventually have to change. The Oakland Raiders, for example: we can't go around stereotyping people as a bunch of lawless marauders. Even the team's logo has crossed sabers and a pla... Read More Michael Yon posts today on his blog about Mosul, Iraq. In it he references an IED strike. Many readers have asked for combat video. I have made a few videos of fighting, but mostly photos. Nevertheless, to see a real IED strike on our troops whil... Read More While on active duty in the Coast Guard, we were all taught a few slogans: Semper Paratus, You Have to Go Out --– You Don'’t Have to Come Back, and That Ain''t in the Budget. I understood the first two. Hell, I was "“all about"”... Read More I've been thinking on a subject in the past day or two. that subject being murder. Follows an ongoing tale of two murders. * * * * * * * * * * In 1996, Nashville artist Janet March disappeared. Her body has, to my knowledge, never been found. Her hus... Read More He didn’t take an enemy gun and blast through an ambush. Not in this case, anyway. He didn’t throw himself on a grenade. But he made Operation Enduring Freedom happen. In 2001 COL Smith was a retired Army guy. Someone asked him to hel... Read More For the first time in 25 years, postal service has resumed in Kandahar. Post offices have reopened in different parts of the city. (Pak Tribune) Read More It is much safer to be against something than to be for anything.... Read More Michelle Malkin blogged an excerpt of last night's (8/15/05) Chris Matthews interview of Cindy Sheehan on Hardball. That particular excerpt shows just how far into radical left-wing territory Sheehan has wandered. If you go to the beginning of the in... Read More I have spoken before on how I wholeheartedly believe that the farce called 'Winter Soldier" influenced an entire generation of Americans. It set in stone what they believed the Army was, what war was, what soldiers did, and how they were trained. Go ba... Read More Well - isn't this interesting. The whistleblower with no agenda against the Bush Administration is joining the left wing anti-war activists in Crawford, TX. Gee, couldn't be cause she's running for Congress now could it? Colleen Rowley is running aga... Read More It smells like we are mixing ice cream and dog crap again. I am heartened to see my tax dollars put to such good use by the United Nations in their new role as the propaganda arm of the Palestinian... Read More I will never understand how some people will rant and rave against the war, and list all the reasons it was wrong, and complain that George Bush lied, and display all manner of righteous condemnation. When I hear this, I Read More 1 Comment |
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 |
Yay! Mudville got a shout out from CNN 'Inside the Blogs'