 |  |
 
October 2012
August 2012 July 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003
     |
 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! October 5, 2005 Open PostBy Greyhawk Welcome to the arena... Posted by Greyhawk / October 5, 2005 9:16 PM | Permalink 30 TrackBacks...The President, who supporters once described as "the best Dad ever", suddenly was met with angry epithets such as "you don’t understand me", "I hate you", and "but the Democrats get to stay up late."... Read More Washington, D.C. - 10/4/05 - 0958 EST As Tropical storm Tammy forms just off of the coast of Florida an embattled President Bush waits at the ready with pen in hand. Following numerous warnings from leaders of the European community Read More Some questions for your consideration: What is the best movie ever made? Which baseball team is the best ever? Which world leader has played the most significant role in history? Which flavor of ice cream is the best? Who is the most beautiful ... Read More Recently much hay has been made by the media that the military missed it's recruiting goals this year and that, obviously, this is caused by anti-war feelings spreading among the populace. Read More Today's winners are Mr. and Mrs. Robert Roy of St. Petersburg Florida. Read More From the Washington Post: High Court Clashes Over Assisted Suicide …. The justices will decide if the federal government, not states, has the final say on the life-or-death issue. …. The Supreme Court eight years ago found that the dy... Read More As far as I'm concerned, a little credit is due the Army leadership, particularly Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker. For months, the Army (and Pentagon) were brow-beaten with negative coverage of lagging recruiting numbers. Yet, with the f... Read More Editors note: This one of our favorite postings from our early days that never made it in front of as many eyeballs as we would have liked. We hope you enjoy it! Bush To Spotted Owls: Bring It On! In Read More The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Californica has passed down a “landmark” ruling, in which it has apparently determined that, "Screaming and yelling by men at work may now be sex-based discrimination if women at work find the behavior more intimid... Read More An outstanding blogger reacts to the Miers nomination with thoughtful questions that reminded me of what America is about. I added a question to her question list. Read More In a stunning display of outright hypocrisy, Representative Charlie Rangel whined today about Vice President Dick Cheney’s response to some of Rangel’s insults about Cheney’s age, health and mental ability. First, Cheney’s comments: Read More White House officials arrested Leandro Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines who worked for Vice Presidents Cheney and Gore. Aragoncillo is shown here being relieved from duty by another Marine. WASHINGTON (ABC News) - In the largest ... Read More If the intelligence is reliable, it had better give the U.S. more than enough reason to pressure Tehran further on verifiable compliance with international nuclear nonproliferation treaties. With the Islamofascist tide gushing forth form Iran, the tim... Read More Go read this, to see where Miers has already demonstrated one issue where she is more conservative than the sainted Bork. Miers: The very liberties we hold dear, such as, “access to public places, the right to bear arms and freedom from const... Read More The We the People organization, mentioned before, seems to be coming more out of the shadows. Eric Pfeiffer has dug up some more information: Geoff Davis Responds to We the People We the People List Grows Is Soros Behind We Read More From The Times Online Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the BibleTHE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true. The Catholic... Read More Napoleon was looking to fill a vacant general officer slot. His adjutant reviewed the candidate pool and reported on their knowledge, skills and abilities. Napoleon was not interested in curriculum vitas. He was interested in something immeasurable. He... Read More My sister-in-law turned 50 last week -- Happy Birthday, Sue! -- and the whole family took her out to dinner to a very long-established Italian restaurant in the Catskills. This was a place that probably saw it's share of Borscht Belt comedians, back wh... Read More Of course, celebs are entitled to their views. Write a letter to the editor. Blog. Talk about nothing but politics in every interview-to-promote-the-flick. Knock yourself out. But don’t expect the rest of the nation to embrace your ideas simply because... Read More Foreword: Dean Esmay writes about A Voice of Sanity on Intelligent Design. After I finished writing this, I was surprised by my conclusions. As opposed to Dean, I'm agnostic, and believe there are "things on Heaven and Earth, undreamt-of in your philos... Read More Yes, I love to see photos of Soldiers with animals, children and teddy bears. I find them endearing, showing the humanity side of our military. But I do have a soft spot for Teddy Bears! Read More Actually, it is Nepotism. The western press is squealing like piglets over my finally naming a successor, my Number Two Son, Potato Head. What is the big affair? Let us see...in America: Adams times two, the Harrisons, the Johnsons, the Taylors, the Cl... Read More It doesn’t take a freakin genius to figure out that the indictments handed down by partisan Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle are purely politically motivated. I have struggled to find even a lefty site that has explained how the new charges are sup... Read More I received the following email last night from fellow Viet Nam vet William Page, whom I came to know last fall due to our mutual horror at the thought of President John Kerry. I knew it was important as soon Read More Britney’s Bra and Other Shiny Objects This Post Is Not About Joel Henry Hinrichs III Read More Hastings fails to even contemplate that by turning over his precious column inches to the suicide terrorist, crowding out everything else, he is actively deciding to perform his role as terrorism's propagandist. Read More Even as the American public sours on "End the Occupation of New Orleans" Sheehan, the MSM can't seem to report about her wanderings accurately. The N&O reported today on a meeting between Sheehan and Senator Dole. Here is how they described Sheehan: ... Read More Nidra Poller, who wrote the article in Commentary magazine last month exposing France 2's lies about an Arab youngster supposedly being killed by Israeli troops during 2000, writes another article in the National Post that provides more Read More Mostly missing from the debate on the war is an informed sense of historical or political theory, a real sense of history. The language of such discourse has truly declined in America,part of a broader educational trend. This is not really news. It h... Read More WMSCI 2005 might be perceived as a research corpus callosum, trying to bridge analytically with synthetically oriented efforts, convergent with divergent thinkers and focused specialists with non-focused or multi-focused generalists… 9th World Multi... Read More |
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 |
Comments (0) |
|
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 |
