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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! April 9, 2006 Open PostBy GreyhawkAnd don't miss the news from Afghanistan. Posted by Greyhawk / April 9, 2006 8:00 PM | Permalink 33 TrackBacksI linked to Diana West's Creeping Amnesty column from an earlier post, and I notice some of the higher traffic sites have also linked to it. If you haven't read it yet, please do so now. When I emailed a Read More A few days ago, I wrote an article about how Greyhawk is misleading the public by telling only half of the story when it comes to recruiting. He tells people that the military is meeting the quotas without telling them Read More Today's winner is Floyd Brown. Read More Ranking presidents, especially the worst, can be done by a number of different criteria. If you look at how unqualified they are, Harding would probably top (or is it bottom) the list. But I think the need for competency is Read More Even before losing the hotly contested 2004 Presidential election to George W. Bush, John Kerry's dislike for his opponent had been well-documented. Since his failed run Kerry has kept a much lower profile, but insiders tell us that his feelings Read More 'Palestinian leaders seek way out of isolation,' plus 'I’m a Terrorist Groupie, Hear Me Roar!' From the desk of Fjordman, The Brussels Journal. (Simpy amazing, Bravo Sir). Read More It should soon be clear why I quoted Rush Limbaugh for the title. Skull of mush in bold, my replies in regular text. Read More Columnist John Leo wrote a piece last week about immigration and “transnationalists” within our society. Leo puts forth the idea that those elites who adopt a transnationalist viewpoint are “increasingly detached from their fellow citizens and drawn to... Read More It’s That Time Again. Remember to link to this post or it will get deleted… Other sites with open trackbacks: Mudville Gazette, Wizbang, Uncooperative Blogger, Stuck On Stupid, Samantha Burns, Comedian Jenée: People are Idiots , Right Wi... Read More Is what I have for the Democrats at this point. The Dems did what they do best, they obstructed the Immigration Bill this week albeit for the wrong reasons though! President Bush blamed Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on Saturday for the potentia... Read More Lex pointed to it first, but it ought to be published everywhere. The story of HM3 Nathaniel R. Leoncio, a hero in the finest traditions of the US Navy corpsmen. Read More Via BP News A new congressional effort to police advertising by crisis pregnancy centers is unnecessary, pro-life advocates said, and unconstitutional, free-speech defenders charged. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has long promoted itself... Read More Amid all the chaos regarding immigrants (both legal and illegal) in the U.S. , there heve been many voices that are missing. These are the voices of non-U.S. citizens fighting -- and falling -- for the U.S. There are a few out there that say that man... Read More In an online discussion I was once asked if I was a theologion. My answer was no, but I've been called worse ;-) Though I may not have formal training, I have done some reading and study over the years. This combined with my nature to de ... Read More El Paso Times In June 2004 in Iraq, Gonzalez, a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, threw himself on a fellow Marine when a hand grenade was thrown toward the observation post ... Read More I hope that we will make sure these stories get told and ‘make the rounds’. Our heros deserve better than what they are getting and it’s up to us to make sure their stories are told. The MSM doesn’t seem interested unless it makes our Soldiers look b... Read More In this context, this initially crazy sounding rant quickly takes on a whole new dimension. What emerges is a deceitful maneuver to shore up support for what is of far greater importance to Hamas: Sowing the seeds of Antisemitism carefully embedded in ... Read More No, he is not a cartoonist. A Suadi journalist has been jailed since Monday for comments posted in on-line forums four years ago. Apparently, authorities claim his faith is in doubt. Read More I am not all that fond of the official Sailor's Creed handed down from on high, for a couple of reasons...so, you're asking, "what do you believe, Sailor?" I like what a young Lieutenant forward deployed aboard a warship in the days following September... Read More Today's lead editorial in the Washington Post gives me a slight bit of reassurance that old and venerable members of the print press still have a breath of life in them. The editorial, A Good Leak, lays out why the current scandal is not and hopefull... Read More The most correct response to a threat of blackmail or similar. In a previous post I attracted the attention of one, possibly two, anonymous commenters that present themselves as familiar with the submarine officer force at my level. They took umbrag... Read More When all we hear is how badly things are going in the Middle East, we need to remember how well things have gone. Surely, whatever your politics, surely you are proud of our American Warriors. Read More I would like to share a few thoughts as a active duty Sailor. I may be called at anytime now to go over there as more Sailors and Airmen are being sent over there to help out the Army. The Sailors and Airmen are doing such jobs as Interrogators, Guard... Read More Today's winners are Mary Ellen Beatty and The Florida Board of Medicine. Read More The net is all abuzz with Hersh and the WaPo. Tales of dastardly politics. Scheming war planning. Liberals gleefully wetting themselves. Again. Read More Another Carnival of the Moonbat Cartoonists! is coming up. Writers that have something to say about moonbat cartoonists, whether they be local, national or international, criticize or defend, give it your best shot! Read More OK, nobody really wants to see another war, especially not one fought with nuclear weapons. Trouble is, sometimes you don't have any good choices and I'd much rather see a mushroom cloud over Tehran than Ft. Worth. I voted for George Bush because I kne... Read More It Was A Good Leak and PRESIDENT BUSH was right ~~ screams the WaPo editorial of today. It was “A Good Leak”, NOT a scandal, for George W. Bush to declassify some intelligence! No, Bushies, you have not died and gone to heaven. However, at... Read More Last night I watched the last two episodes of Band of Brothers. There is a scene (the series is very true to the facts) where a German colonel is surrendering to an American major. The colonel is clearly a junker, Read More Why do we even have immigration check points? What sort of exclusionary, elitist, domineering B.S. is that?! People should just be able to come and go as they please, right? We are all part of one, big, happy global village, RIGHT?? Read More (H/T to Wally and Drudge) President Bush is planning to nuke Iraq? The answer is “yes” according to the Telegraph (UK): “The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomi... Read More Oh, I just had a terrible thought. Maybe we're acting like girls. Read More The Chronicle of Higher Education arrived in my mail box. In plastic wrap. But it should be covered in brown paper. Remember, Your Business Blogger subscribes for the articles. But I can always count on The Chronicle to titillate. Here's... 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 |
Let's Not Forget that today is the 2nd anniversary of the capture of Sgt. Matt Maupin... I have the Washington Times article from earlier this week posted...
Sir,
I am thinking of making the News From Afghanistan a regular Friday feature. It ain't gonna be Arthur Chrenkoff's Good News From Afghanistan, and it won't be the Dawn Patrol, but it still might be somewhat useful. Thanks for the link, I think that decided it for me.