Welcome

If you've wandered in for the first time, perhaps pointed this way from any of the recent media coverage of milblogs or elsewhere, welcome to Mudville. Welcome to the world of military weblogs. I'm a career military guy, earlier this year I returned from a tour of duty in Baghdad. My wife is a career wife and mom. The site is ours, is not official or registered with the DoD in any way shape or form, and the opinions expressed are those of the authors, etc. etc.

For those new to blogs, a word of explanation. Links appearing in the text of a post were placed there by the author of that post. Content of the linked document is the property and responsibility of its author.

Links and comments below the "posted by" line are placed by the respective authors, and are not selected by The Mudville Gazette. Opinions expressed in the sites linked to this section are those of their authors - and because this is an open forum should not be considered as endorsed or shared by the Mudville Gazette.

We will delete any links or comments referencing or directing readers to obscene or illegal material. Please report any such items to greyhawk @ mudvillegazette.com.

That said, please note that I fight for free speech (literally), and am not afraid of ideas. The exchange of such is the purpose of this site. We encourage your participation.

As noted, I recently returned from my own tour of duty in Iraq - I was able to maintain this site from there too. Some of my earliest posts from my days in Baghdad can be found here. There are now (and have been since before the invasion) a growing number of military folks (and Iraqis) blogging from Iraq - and from Afghanistan too. Bookmark us and visit as often as you can and you'll meet most of them. The main purpose of the Mudville Gazette has been to amplify as much as possible the voices of those troops by providing pointers to their blogs. The Mrs handles most of that part of the effort now - likewise she manages the MilBlogs Ring, a group I started on Veteran's Day 2003. There are almost 300 blogs in the ring at this time.

I suppose she's the "play by play", and my contribution to the effort is to provide the color commentary. You'll find a significant contrast between the Iraq described by those who've been (or are now) there and the Iraq you read about in your newspapers or see on TV. (There are both good and bad reports from that sector, by the way - I point out the good ones too.) Scroll down this main page and you'll see the past week's worth of stories. Or click here for a recent series that probably captures the essence of what we're all about.

We also have daily "Open Posts" where any other blogger can place a link back to their site, whether they are military or not. We are all about free speech - and you can add your comments to anything here - whether you agree or disagree with what's said. Once again, I fight for free speech, so feel free to exercise it here. The only exceptions would be classified information, extremely foul language, and references to home loans or card games or other things that are automatically banned to prevent an overwhelming amount of "spam" comments - mostly from online porn and gambling sites.

Many of our recent stories best illustrate the depth of information you'll only find on milblogs. Here are some from just the past few weeks.

- Blogger and freelance journalist Steven Vincent was recently kidnapped and killed in Iraq. You can "get to know" this remarkable man via the following stories:

And Then There Were None
Who Killed Steven Vincent?
Searching For Steven Vincent

Not all the news is that heavy though.

- We looked at music written and recorded by GIs in Iraq here and here, with a follow-up here. (Yes, you'll be able to hear the songs.)

- A roundup of milblogger reviews of the television program "Over There" can be found in its own special section of The Dawn Patrol here.

- A look at other media distortions of quotes from troops can be found here.

- A story on politicians (and others) campaigning at the funerals of American GIs is here.

- Real numbers on casualties from Iraq can be found here.

- Results of recent opinion polls of Iraqi people are here.

- Did you know that the US House of Representatives last month voted in favor of a measure "...to enhance the security of the U.S. by making it the policy of the U.S. to pursue a transfer of responsibility for Iraqi forces only when they are ready to assume such responsibility and not to withdraw prematurely the U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq."?

Additionally, the House determined "...to express the sense of Congress that the capture, detention and interrogation of international terrorists are essential to the successful prosecution of the Global War on Terrorism and to the defense of the U.S., its citizens, and coalition partners from future terrorist attacks; and that the detention and lawful, humane interrogation by the U.S. of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is essential to the defense of the U.S. and its coalition partners and to the successful prosecution of the Global War on Terrorism." Full coverage is here.

- Did you know that the Pentagon's new chief defense counsel for the Guantᮡmo Bay, Cuba, war-crimes trials is a Marine reservist called to active duty from a six-year stint at the American Civil Liberties Union? Mudville readers knew.

- Likewise they know that the US has been airlifting troops into the Darfur region of Sudan. (US security forces are still in place there.)

As noted, those are just from the past few weeks. We've been here over two years, and we aren't going away any time soon.

We update several times a day - come back often, and thanks for stopping by.