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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! December 13, 2005 Open PostBy GreyhawkAnd don't forget to vote for Soldier's Angel Holly Aho. (Mudville too, if you've time. I'm astonished at how we've kept up with the big dogs.)
Posted by Greyhawk / December 13, 2005 9:54 PM | Permalink 22 TrackBacksThe first reports out of Iraq on this week's elections are favorable. The MSM will try to twist the story into a negative discourse. The President needs to stay on the offense.Michelle Malkin has more. Bill Bennett wants to start a Purple Finger Briga... Read More The Riviera Beach land grab for commercial development continues. City officials claimed the property to be seized was blighted, a condition for eminent domain to be enacted. The official city report has been discredited by citizens who did their own i... Read More BAGHDAD (AFP) — Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein raises an objection at the presiding judge at his trial, while Ramsey Clark looks on. International observers insist that a fair trial is the only dignified way to deal with the deposed tyrant, Read More Incredible. As tragic as the deaths of 30,000 people over a nearly three-year period is, it is less deadly than the 25-year regime of Saddam Hussein. Baathists murdered 1 million people in that time, an average of 40,000 per year. Thus, "peace" was mo... Read More The Opinionator is searching for a new blog, photo, video, music tool, i.e. a new home computer. Looking at a Dell desktop, the E510, a laptop of some sort (Dell 6000, HP Pavilion) and the new iMac G5. Get a slight discount on any of them. So, whatcha'... Read More Based on agent Deranged Monkey's eyewitness account, and digital sound recording of the alleged book signing, I have determined that it was not in fact a book signing at all, and I have fabricated a fake but accurate transcript of the real event as i... Read More First off, I am discussing affirmative action in school admissions, and that case alone. Affirmative action elsewhere is a very different argument. So what is affirmative action in school admissions? Well it's accepting one applicant based on their rac... Read More Frida Berrigan writes at Alternet.org on Why I am Marching to Guantanamo. She mentions that, as a Christian, she must stand up to oppression and torture. She goes on to say:Jesus commands that we visit the prisoner and comfort the Read More I've posted on this in the past, but I think it needs to be done again. The issue of supporting our troops if you are a conservative/liberal/Republican/Democrat/whatever. Read More Jim Sr. and I went to hear of the exploits of two men who served as armor officers in Patton’s 3rd Army during the fight across Europe, but we got something different. On December 1sth, a lecture was sponsored by the University of South Florida,... Read More If you want to paint a negative picture of a problem, one method is to provide a series of poor potential solutions. Our regional paper tackles the Iraq problem by providing these four "choices" in today's edition: Stay the Course, Set a Timetable, A... Read More Dick Yarbrough tells us about an overwhelming response to one of his requests, for Jawja citizens to write the finest in the 48th to express their gratitude. According to Dick the response was quite generous, including a note from a Read More How about I shoot you full of drugs and see you how you like it? Certain elements of the medical community are pushing "bias" as a condition needing treatment with drugs. Read More Via an e-mail, I was pointed to this site, DonationDoubler.org After Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, I wanted to contribute to the relief efforts, but do not work for an employer that matches contributions. I formed this website after searching ... Read More This may be an unpopular opinion, but I have much more sympathy for the policeman and soldiers that had to deal with this mess than the actual victims at this point...they didn't choose to live in a city that was under sea level. They didn't choose t... Read More The Courier-Journal reports today about the University of Louisville's amazing find in stem cell research. This research is with adult stem cells. One great quote from the article:We have found a counterpart for embryonic stem cells in adult bone marrow. Read More A lot of colleges and universities want the federal government and taxpayer's billions but they don't want to let military recruiters on their campuses. George Will tells us what he thinks of such schools. And Chief Justice Roberts and Justices O'Co... Read More Investigators working on behalf of Radioactive Liberty worked tirelessly to track down Albert Owens, Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, and Yu-Chin Yang Lin. We found 4 graves embossed with identical names, but found no actual living persons by those n... Read More 9. Unconditional Surrender G.I. Joe (now in both French and Spanish models) 8. Tookie Williams' Greatest Hits (DVD VHS) 7. The Michael Jackson Peppermint Schnapps Twister Gift Set 6. Lipton Cup-o-Gonorrhea 5. Back Stage Pass Barbie 4. Life-size Alan Read More Lately my posts about Iraq have been few and far between. One wouldn't assume this to be true considering that I live and work in Iraq, day-in-day-out, but it is nevertheless the case. I couldn't tell you why this is... Read More Jon Corzine promised to leave the gasoline tax alone when he campaigned for governor of New Jersey last month. Now the Star-Ledger reports Corzine is considering raising the gas tax after all. Liar. Remember what his ex-wife told the New York Tiomes: ... Read More The FBI is investigating and convicting Democrats in West Virginia for Vote fraud. Newsmax has the story. Linked to: Bloggin' Out Loud, Iris.org Committees Of Correspondence- The Lusty Chinese Economy Freedom Folks-A Christmas Poem The Uncooperative B... Read More 7 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 |
Trackback failed. Here's my link. Battle in a Sleepy Little Town
"Pinging too fast error" once again on trackbacks..:(
Here's the bio of Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX), a veteran we should be listening to...
A must read for all you USAF guys, in case you don't know his background...
Trackback failed as well. I tried to link to the Dawn Patrol but that did not go through either.
Zawahiri Gives Upbeat "State of the Jihad" Address
http://www.thenoseonyourface.com/
the_nose_on_your_face/2005/12/zawahiri_gives_.html
Looks like the rightwingnut favorite fantasy network, FauxNews, could be jumping to a new tune:
http://w3t.org/?u=fdb
Very nice Christmas logo Mrs. G.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/zito/s_402532.html
is this a case of the whole story not being told or is it an oversight? I have seen soldiers' caskets escorted before via commercial air, and I wouldn't think that it would be typical that they would just be without an escort of some sort...
"Family Upset Over Soldier's Body Arriving As Freight--Bodies Sent To Families On Commercial Airliners"
http://www.10news.com/news/5504608/detail.html