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 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 22, 2005
42 TrackBacksCombat illustrator is not a specialty that usually gets assigned combat duty. But combat photographers do. So when Marine illustrator Annette Kyriakides was offered the chance to accompany the 11th MEU into battle if she would carry a camera, Read More I finished Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln this weekend. I had been reluctant to do so, from the moment I could discern in the flow of pages that I had come upon the eve of his death by assassination. It was – it is – a powerful testament to a giant fi... Read More News that John Roberts strongly objected to honors bestowed by the Reagan White House on Michael Jackson, has some former critics greatly impressed by the Supreme Court nominee’s apparent psychic ability to look into the future to prevent scand... Read More Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein recently wrote a letter to a friend in Jordan in which he stated that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the Arab cause and then called on other Arabs to do the same. The Read More Today's dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny ... Read More Over at Townhall.com Mark Tapscott has an excellent column about the sad contrasts between the ideas that brought Ronald Reagan to the White House and the Republicans who have squandered his legacy. Read More Project Valour-IT is a new project within Soldiers Angels that is working to provide laptops and voice software to our soldiers wounded with hand/arm injuries that cannot use their hands to type or write letters. You can find out about the project from... Read More As a volunteer in Hugh Hewitt's/Radioblogger's "Adopt a Box of Docs" project I received my assignment yesterday. Box 45. What would it contain? Controversy? Conservative Credential Confirmation? A good quote for my Lighter-Side piece? Uhhh . . . No. ... Read More Saudi security forces shot dead one of the country's top Al-Qaeda leaders in the holy city of Medina Thursday [August 18], adding to a toll of the group's successive chiefs gunned down in shootouts. Read More The Cheetah had expanded since I'd last been there, and it now comprises the spaces formerly occupied by the comedy club's bar and stage room. A shame, since I would have had a lot more fun listening to loonies on an open mike than I did watching the... Read More Today's winner is former NFL player Lawrence Phillips. Read More I’ve been watching the sad and traumatic scenes of the Gaza pull-out thinking: I know this all might be right at some level geopolitically, but it just is so wrong. I’m not as familiar as I should be with all the details of the deeper hist... Read More Katherine Kerstin is The Star Tribune's attempt at diversity (political) but her column's scope is a conservative view on the local area only. I do love the fact that Katherine was able to get a "good news" story on the editorial page about Iraq thou... Read More Blogs attract young, wealthy readers: that demographic & socioeconomic group much coveted by media outlets & courted by the advertisers who ensure the financial solvency of all the major media outlets of all mediums. Read More The NCAA, not content to rest on its laurels after the ridiculous decision to ban Indian mascots during postseason, has reared its clueless head again as we approach college football season. On September 3rd, Georgia will host Boise State in one o... Read More I would also like to know, why are so many people opposed to a large scale "neighborhood watch" to protect the sovereignty of our nation? Read More There is much vaporousness over the disengagement plan put forth by our Senator Russ Feingold. Read More Here's an update regarding efforts to make sure our military servicemen and women with special needs as a result of service are treated properly by universities and colleges. And there's something you can do to help. Read More Perhaps there is no other issue as fragile to the preservation of our liberties than a careful balance between civil liberties and our national security. To its credit, the ACLU recognizes the danger if the scales are tipped too far to the side of na... Read More Here's an update on what we can do to help our military servicemen and women with problems they may encounter at universities and colleges as a result of their military service. And there's something you can do to help. Read More Ellen Ladowski recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post about the link between Star Trek and pedophilia. The article begins thusly. The LA Times recently ran a story about the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit,... Read More There's a synonym in there I would wish to use, but it's still fitting, because there is a certain political party represented by this animal. Read More I'd like to begin another new feature, where from time to time I will share with you some dispatches from the front. I know someone currently fighting in Iraq, and with his permission, I'll share with you some excerpts of his emails. He's a thoughtfu... Read More Another sign of the decline of the left in the battle of ideas is the lack of quality op-ed writing available. The N&O relies on the old windbag Molly Ivins and the economist-turned-political hack Krugman to convey the ideas of the left, but their pi... Read More Interesting read that gives some idea on the freedom of debate and information flows within the UN. It is reportedly a transcript from the "UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion & Protection of Human Rights: 57th session, plenum (26 July 2005, 5:43-6:03... Read More I think I've just about had enough of celebrity posturing. Nope, in fact, I know I have! The funniest part of this whole phenomenon, is just how seriously these oh-so-worldly people take themselves. And none take themselves quite as seriously Read More The Anchoress notes a Hollywood screenwriter who is committing professional suicide by revealing that he is ... gasp ... a Republican who actually loves America. Although he may find future employment in Hollywood difficult he had the intellectual cour... Read More Rob, guest posting at Wizbang, reports that an al-Qaeda linked-group, calling itself the “Brigade of Media Jihad”, called on its militants to “post terrifying pictures on the internet in order to terrorise the enemy.” “... Read More I was going to write a long article, taking Chap to task for spewing forth the same tired old wisdom about how invading Iraq, set the Middle East up for great things in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Then I remembered that I had alr... Read More The "Sentinels of Freedom" community group honored a wounded Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Aug. 19 in a Pentagon Hall of Heroes ceremony, presenting him a scholarship that includes a lot more than educational benefits... Read More I have been waiting and watching for further information, and none has been forthcoming. I've seen no news reports of increased activity nor noteworthy incidents from the Mosul area. Assuming that Michael has been inundated with emails, I have refrai... Read More The Associated Press reports that members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars booed Mayor Rocky Anderson at their convention in Salt Lake City. Good. The guy's a jerk whose city invited the VFW to hold its convention there only to have its mayor try to org... Read More I find myself at odds with Jack Army's discussion of Bob Herbert's OP-ED piece in the NY Times concerning recruiting. As usual, the far right want to immediately dive in and dismantle the words of the article without looking at the overall theme. Furth... Read More Noted foreign policy expert and legendary rock guitarist Keith Richards complains that, George Bush doesn't listen to us,'' according to this Boston Herald story. Gee, I wonder why not? Maybe this is a stretch but could it be because you are a rock sta... Read More Commander Naval Surface Forces likes it. The price right. It goes fast and can be loaded with a lot of firepower. What's not to like? It defies "tradition" and the "blue water" Navy. Read More Katherine Kerstin is The Star Tribune's attempt at diversity (political) but her column's scope is a conservative view on the local area only. I do love the fact that Katherine was able to get a "good news" story on the editorial page about Iraq thou... Read More I can’t see the flight deck from the bridge, as it is obscured by the after superstructure. That castle of steel plating houses two hangers capable of holding the CH-46 helos, the wardroom, the officer’s staterooms, with the exception of... Read More Go to any newspaper website, or pick one up that is in print, turn on the news programs, or go to any liberal blog and you're bound to hear about how Iraq has somehow "blown" the consitution question. Basically because the assembly didn't vote on it but, Read More From an article in USA Today: BEIJING (AP) — Russian and Chinese paratroopers landed along China’s northeastern coast Saturday as some 9,000 soldiers from the two countries began the second stage of their historic first joint military exercis... Read More No one leaves his heart in San Francisco anymore for fear that it would turn into a chicken's liver. Read More I finished Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln this weekend. I had been reluctant to do so, from the moment I could discern in the flow of pages that I had come upon the eve of his death by assassination. It was – it is – a powerful testament to a giant fi... 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 |
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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 |
