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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! March 28, 2006 Q and A with Mr GreyBy Greyhawk(Bumped from 2006-03-27 21:36:35 to keep the discussion in comments going) Just finished an email interview (intended for a military publication), since it kept me from the spare 15 minutes I'd have otherwise spent writing a blog entry I thought I'd just go ahead and post the whole thing verbatim... When did you start your blog, and why? Where are you now? What’s your take on the mandatory registration of bloggers? What effect do you think that will have on milblogging? Have you experienced any conflicts over blogging? What do you see as a milblog’s most important function? What have you learned from the experience? What do you think the future holds for milblogging? /interview. Yankee Sailor knows those Navy blogging rules, by the way. They really aren't any different from rules of conduct that apply across the board to those of us in uniform. Case in point... Update: Of course, that example doesn't even come close to Jeff Englehart. And when milblogs are outlawed only outlaws will have milblogs - welcome to the future. Posted by Greyhawk / March 28, 2006 6:00 PM | Permalink 2 TrackBacks9 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 |
>>Mine has been to debunk flawed media reports on Iraq, tell the stories of the everyday heroes in Iraq, point out the things you never read in the papers or see on TV - coalition victories, progress, etc.>>
And I, for one, am very grateful for your efforts. It's almost unreal to read the headers from the milblogs you feature and then see the headers from the MSM that you report below the blogs - makes me almost wonder if we're talking about the same conflict!
Thank you...
Just a thought on the chilling effects of the Army rules... what's stopping an soldier from emailing a civilian blogger or reporter and being an anonymous source in order to "get out the truth"? Is the military able to subpoena the press to discover anonymous sources?
Personally, I think this "chilling effect" canard is a bit overblown. My whole command knows about my blog, but I never registered it or even told the Army about it. They just were fans, and word eventually got around that it was my work they were reading.
There's no "prior restraint" (to borrow a SCOTUS term) as far as I can tell with milblogs. There's only the possibility of getting your balls squashed by the brass if you step on your crank and blog about things you shouldn't be blogging about. (I.e., troop movements, operational details, posting obscene photos, any information that could aid the enemy, etc.) Most of the bloggers I've heard of who got in trouble were basically airing their company's dirty laundry in public. "Our sergeant major is a toolbag, our CO is a clown..." and so on. What employee anywhere isn't going to face some consequences for tearing down their bosses?
The problem then becomes do soldiers lose their credibility because they're not free to trash talk to their heart's content about their leadership? I don't think so. I don't think you would automatically have to discount the accounts of a Private Joe Snuffy blogging from the aftermath of WWII during the long occupation of Germany simply because he didn't think Truman was a jerk. (Oh, if only such a thing had been possible back then).
So, I hear ya Greyhawk. While you may be right that the Colby Buzzell anti-establishment types may be more drawn to the rogue excitement of an anonymous blog (random example, I'm no expert on his work), I don't feel that there is nearly the Uncle Sam oversight that some seem to believe exists. It might be tempting to test this hypothesis. Perhaps on my next blog entry I'll type in huge bold letters: "THIS WAR IS BULL****!!!", accompanied with a close-up shot of my 'fourth point of contact' and then sit back and wait for the sirens to go off and the black helicopters to descend upon me.
Maybe on my last week here.
Buck Sargent
4-23 Stryker Infantry
Mosul, Iraq
I'm a civilian, so to my knowledge the registration thing doesn't cover me, but growing concerns over the possibility of OPSEC violations have caused me to go virtually silent on the subject of what goes on over here in Iraq.
That's also had a negative impact on my readership, but there isn't a lot that can be done when my higher priority is to ensure that I don't say something that might inadvertantly lead to someone's death.
All interesting-- Seems to me that what offended Buzzell's superiors most was his contradicting of the official press statements which stated that the Iraqi forces did all the fighting, etc. Viewed in that narrow spectrum, are there more soldiers and Marines who feel it is necessary to clarify the official statements? Is this done indirectly? And again, do some would-be bloggers just confide in a reporters to tell the story?
Jon
Actually, Colby Buzzell's superiors weren't offended by his blog. They wanted him to continue, but wanted to review what he wrote for potential OPSEC violations - a forerunner to the official policy now in place. Colby chose to shut the blog down and remove all his posts.
And thus was born the myth that he was a rebellious, anti-Army blogger who was shut down by the brass - and it's not true. And from that basis grows many theories like the one you relate. But in summer 2004 - when his blog was available and widely read - the new Iraqi Army was embryonic at best, and no one was claiming they were doing all the fighting, or even "in the lead".
But there's the rub - all his posts are gone now, so a form of urban legend has developed, one that portrays the army in a much more negative light than CB ever did. That's an unintended consequence of the series of events.
In fact, milbloggers like Colby are exactly what the Army needs - he's a lot closer to the "squared away" type I was referring to than he is to the Jeff Engleharts of the world. Take a look at the original comments from his Men in Black post (the one that ultimately brought him much grief) and you'll gat a feel for what a fantastic bit of unofficial PR it really was.
The irony is that as with the official policy, all involved had good intentions. But there's an enduring lesson from this whole Iraq war thing - good intentions don't always bring desired results.
Buck
Greyhawk's advice to all milbloggers:
A military blogger must write with the understanding that his mother, his commander, and his enemy are all potential readers of his blog.
Many would be milbloggers aren't up to the task. You obviously are, but most often it's the second person in my list who some bloggers fear. Believe me, I've seen a lot of great milbloggers click that onoff to the off position for just that reason.
Take a look at this post and this post from Porphyrogenitus - they were the last he ever did. Then there's this one from Phil Carter.
This is what I had in mind: See the brigade press release from the Mosul battle Buzzell described in the Men In Black post ("Iraqi security forces repelled all of the attacks... Multinational forces served in a supporting role..."). It's clear that CNN's story pretty much is the same as the press release. I would imagine Buzzell didn't think it fair for his unit's brave fighting to be whitewashed out. And in his book he adds the detail that after the June 24th battle, a Lt. Col. came by to tell some soldiers what to tell the media about what happened.
I understand that Buzzell's posts were well loved, even within the Army. And I agree they don't portray the Army in a bad light. So I was wondering then what the real reason was for their being pulled. It seems that if he was undermining the official account of how the battle happened, the Army wouldn't want that.
Sorry if this is old ground I'm treading over here, but I do want to understand the dynamics here-- and also understand what a soldier or marine ought to do when they think that the the "official" account released to the press is wrong. And the Buzzell lesson seems to me that a blog is not a safe harbor for posting that.
Thanks,
I copy that Jon. And regardless of who had the larger role in that day's fighting, there's no denying that Mosul deteriorated, and what CB was describing were the early days of a long bloody battle. Mike Yon's accounts of the Deuce-Four - part of the team that followed CB's in Mosul- make that very clear.
By December of 2004 a military dining facility in Mosul was infiltrated by a suicide bomber. That event was "covered" by at least five milbloggers on the scene. (I was elsewhere in Iraq at the time.) That may be the "highwater mark" of milblogging.
There are many fine military bloggers writing from Iraq today, but not in the numbers there were a year ago, and certainly not in the numbers that would be if the Army had allowed unchecked growth.
This has theoretically reduced the potential for an inadvertant security breach - at an imeasurable cost in opportunity to strengthen public support for the overall effort.