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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! February 19, 2006 Open PostBy GreyhawkIf you're new here, the open post is where fellow bloggers can self-publish links to their sites. We celebrate free speech here - we have no control over the content (okay, we'll delete any overtly offensive links when we find them, but I can't remember the last time that happened) and offer this as a way for readers and other bloggers to find new "voices". Try a few. Posted by Greyhawk / February 19, 2006 3:30 PM | Permalink 26 TrackBacksPics from the Estonian military of the Stone Platoon in Iraq ... Read More am troubled each night I watch the news, when did it become popular for mob violence to make the rules? Is it my imagination or is someone trying to inflame a worldwide civil war between the mobs and every one else that wants to maintain order. My ba... Read More The attack on the Boy Scouts continues. Read about it here, at the blog Stones Cry Out. Arguments in a major Boy Scouts case unfolding in Pasadena, Calif., before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – a case that is certain... Read More So that leaves a war of "exhaustion". In order to win a war of "Exhaustion", you need to make the price of surrender cheaper than the price of continuing fighting. Read More Democrats have been feeding at the lobbyists' trough in larger percentages than they would want anyone to believe. This from The Washington Times: Democrats have taken more money from lobbyists than Republicans during the past 15 years, acc... Read More Mrs. Bill Clinton is positioned between her husband and President Bush at Madame Tussauds' Wax Museum. Her admirers are employees of The Madame's house.From Yahoo News: Aaron Fuksa, right, and Scottie McLaughlin, both employees of Mad... Read More I never heard or saw anything about this story maybe because it’s from Dec. 27th, 2005. I don’t know about you but this appears to me to be really sleazy by NBC News. I just wonder if NBC had an anchor attacked like ABC with Woodruff if ... Read More Over the weekend the Vice President “accidentaly” shot 78 year old Harry Whittington in the face, neck, and chest with some unexpected spray, while attempting to relieve himself during a quail hunting expedition. ... Read More Via Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler I came across this hilarious (and NSFW) animated editorial on the Muhammad cartoon imbroglio. You Muslims want something to be offended by? CLICK HERE Linked at Mudville Gazette's Open Post. Read More Editorial- Like many of you out there, I enjoy the Olympics and all of the fanfare and hoopla that surrounds them. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Underdogs coming out of nowhere to grab the gold. Heavy Read More That's the stunning hypothesis of crypto-archeologist Professor Stefan Duyavich, who presents his findings in a startling new book, The Lost Babylonian Pyramid.... Read More A few weeks ago, I shared a story about a local hero who was invited to attend the State of the Union Address. Former Staff Sergeant David Bellavia, who is a decorated veteran having served two tours in Iraq, grabbed my attention again this week with ... Read More Heroes In Our Midst I've never written a song I felt so passionate about or believed in as much as Heroes In Our Midst, says songwriter Dick Eastman. Because he wants the message of this tune to reach as many Read More An MSM editor tells readers he's so "weary" of explaining why he won't show the cartoons. I suggest he may be weary because of all the work he's done showing Abu Ghraib photos and having to explain "why the photos but not the cartoons." There's more.... Read More Horizontal Takeoff, Horizontal Landing (HTHL) for the "1st Stage" of the launch process from Andrews Space Read More WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 –/MNA PRESS/ — Today CRAVE announced it is calling for immediate Congressional hearings to expose the anti—religious agenda of the ACLU. The ACLU was last investigated by a Special Committee of Congress in 1931. Rog... Read More In one of the silliest events of the Bush administration, they have now agreed to turn over 6 US ports (including the Port of New York) to the Dubai ports owned by the UAE. This is great. We are in Read More Michelle Malkin has an email posted from the University of Washington Foundation, which, in the aftermath of the ignorant comments by some students towards Greg Boyington, has set up a scholarship fund in the name of Lt. Col Boyington to benefit former... Read More I truly hope this isn't as insane as it appears on its face.A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with Read More Who does this attack by Alec Baldwin on Dick Cheney reflect worse on: Dick Cheney or Alec Baldwin? If you think it's bad to kick a man while he's down, how about hurling unsupported outrageous accusations at him when he's down, including calling him a ... Read More It looks like I guessed correctly about Jean-Marie Le Pen. He's not and never was truly opposed to Islam within France, and now, it looks like the mask is off: Read More AirborneVet has a post, "Picture Day," that presents a side of our troops often left out of the MSM. It will surely capture your heart! Read More I saw this article on Friday about Bill Clinton calling for cartoonists conviction, but couldn't believe my eyes. Somehow, someway, I thought (mistakenly) that there was some error to the account. I am now more glad we have a president Read More Another post in a myspace group attacking Christianity. Once again, the original post in bold and my replies in normal text. On a side note, the subject of my... Read More There is so much mis-information about the proposed purchase of a British port operator by a UAE port operator. Time after time, for example, it has been printed that the purchase is the purchase of the ports. The facts belie much of the rhetoric surr... Read More Sixty-one years ago today 30,000 Marines stormed ashore on an island called Sulphur Island in the Pacific. In Japanese that is translated as "Iwo Jima." After four days of bitter fighting, a small patrol reached the peak of Mt. Suribachi, where 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 |
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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 |
Help get the word out about these awesome ads featuring midwest American servicemembers - The Minnesota Democratic party is fighting to keep these ads off the air because it doesn't like what these military folks have to say. So of course, I'm determined to get them as far and wide as humanly possible - anyone up for a jihad?
http://www.midwestheroes.com/docs/video/