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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! November 8, 2005
26 TrackBacksThe lede of yesterday's Dear Abby column was a letter from a Dad who is hurt when his ex throws birthday parties for their kids and doesn't invite him. This was the second letter: DEAR ABBY: I was a soldier... Read More How do I feel? Fucking-A proud that's how I feel. Proud to have known all these men who were willing to literally give everything for us who get to enjoy it back here. I also feel insanely angry at the Cindy Sheehans of the world, the "Iraq was a mis... Read More Bjørn Stærk has an essay up that starts with discussing the media revolution and follows through with a discussion on the nature of opinions versus knowledge. I liked this article, because I am well aware that even when I have Read More ... I guess my question at this point is "Where the hell is Dick Cheney hiding these days?" Karl Rove has made himself useful to George W. Bush over the years by telling him what issues it would be best to focus on to win the next election. So far so g... Read More Here's the latest word on the Project Valour-IT fundraising competition.... From the Project Valour-IT blog, it looks like each of the 4 teams competiting in the fundraiser are getting creative. Auctions seemed to have popped up as a good idea (Smas... Read More A Marine serving in Iraq has been honored with the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal as well as a Combat Action Ribbon for his heroic actions after a suicide bomber attacked his convoy in Fallujah. Lance Cpl. Andrew Champion... Read More A panty thief gets 5 years, 8 months for stealing the underwear of eight coeds. The thief, Sung Koo Kim, was held on $15 million bond. Read More To all of those who have tried to utilize trackbacks over the past few days here I apologize. Sometimes the system doesn't work but it should be fine now so go ahead and leave those trackbacks. You can link to... Read More It’s obvious, that when taken at face value, the ongoing Intifada in Europe is a very bad thing. I think it’ll have it’s benefits when all is said and done though. That is, assuming Europe makes a solid commitment to fighting the w... Read More ...Government officials became concerned when rioters violated, as of Friday at 9:00pm, French law that mandates a thirty-five hour work week. The official response was delayed by a pleasant weekend spent in Fontainebleau until the start of the officia... Read More Are you guilty? Read More Prince Charles is reported to think some in the West, especially in America, are expecting too much of Muslims. But a blogger and a pundit take a different view. What should we expect of Muslims? Read on. Read More Bjørn Stærk has an essay up that starts with discussing the media revolution and follows through with a discussion on the nature of opinions versus knowledge. I liked this article, because I am well aware that even when I have Read More Known collectively as the Paris riots, the madness continues to rage out of control in France (Curfews?). In the past few days I’ve heard so many excuses for this barbaric behavior. The “youths” are poor, white French people are sn... Read More The Democrats are playing tendentious and dishonest games with U.S. national security, in the middle of a war, for partisan gain. It is simply despicable what they’re doing. Read More I can't take family, friends, or snow to Iraq and Afghanistan, but I can sure do my best to send some cookies! So this Friday (no school), I am having a cookie-making party! I need contacts. We want to send cookies to any soldier who is deployed who ... Read More The riots throughout France have continued into their 12th night and the government of France is at least talking about cracking down. Read More In an effort to further understand the differences in how men and women respond to humor, scientists on Tuesday readied a Russian booster rocket carrying a European-built probe. Scientific studies of how the male and female brains react to humor s... Read More Tolerance, that is all that Eurpoe has to offer. As tolerant Europe burns, all that the disenfranchised want is respect. ... Read More Right now the public radio here in Austria called ORF is broadcasting a series about America, and it is about the fact that America is not just what he see and hear of in the media. It is more about the liberals in the US, and about their role and ab... Read More MSM: asking the wrong question as usual Read More Rioting in France has lost it's momentum. This report from AP under the heading: French Rioting Appears to Lose Strength Overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, youths torched 617 vehicles, down from 1,173 a night earlier, police said. Incidents were reported in ... Read More Day 13 of the riots in France. The violence continued, despite the curfews and increased police coverage. Read More Day 13 and now we have the French government implementing curfews, great move guys, great. Way to jump on the situation and get it under control. Last night was “calmer” – only 1,200 cars and a few buildings burned, again GREAT JOB GUYS!! Note to the w... Read More This from Rasmussen Reports: If Hillary Clinton runs for President in 2008, 29% of Americans say they would definitely vote for her. Forty percent (40%) would definitely vote against the former First Lady... [....]In seven months of Hillary Meter elec... Read More 2 Comments |
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 |
Whoops! I was having trouble with trackbacks and it appears I got carried away - feel free to delete one of my entries... :-(
GreyHawk,
Chris Muir has graciously offered to create a custom (and signed) Day by Day cartoon in support of Project Valour-IT.
We're holding an auction and the highest bidder will be featured in a cartoon and receive the original artwork. They'll also be able to give credit to the service team of their choice.
Details are here: http://overtaken.blogmosis.com/archives/030531.html