AllMilitary.com

Earlier this month, news broke that soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq must notify their immediate supervisor before publishing a blog. Soldiers are then allowed to blog, as long as they don’t give away any information that wouldn’t be available to the general public. The U.S. Army said that the purpose is intended to protect soldiers on the battlefield.

So what kinds of information is restricted to bloggers?

Information not available to the general public includes comments on daily military activities and operations, unit morale, results of operations, status of equipment and other security sensitive information, Major Ryder said.

What effect this will have on the military blogging community remains to be seen. Does this mean a decrease in first-hand military blog accounts of the Iraqi experience, or is it simply a safeguard for protecting our soldiers, and nation, from those who intend harm upon them? A limitation of first amendement rights or a necessary security precaution? Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts.

Life In The Blogshpere

• Spouse Buzz previews the upcoming television series Army Wives that premires on Lifetime June 3 at 10 pm EST. Worth watching? Check out the promo on that page. Their take: part sensationalism, part reality.
• In his May 30 post, Bouhammer provides links to all his YouTube videos he has taken since being stationed in Afghanistan. Pretty amazing stuff. You see up close what daily life is like overseas, protecting our country. You see how something as simple as just driving through the city can be dangerous, even when no gunfire is involved.
• USA Today pens a very pessimistic report that says new military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren’t strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents. Badgers Forward counters, saying that things aren’t as bad as USA Today would have you believe.

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A Soldier’s Perspective

From Cpl M: I deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom 06-08 back in February. My overall duties haven’t changed much, but it has given a new perspective on the Corps. I plan on elaborating on that during my time here on VA Joe as a guest blogger.

Q & A With Cpl M

Question: What are three things your readers probably do not know about you?

Wow. Good question.

1. Well, a few of my readers know this one, but not many. I was an honor graduate and was offered a great scholarship for college that I gave up in favor of joining the Marine Corps. I grew up in Arkansas and graduated from high school there, but my first three years of high school were spent in a suburb of Atlanta.
2. I’m very proud of my little brother. He has overcome great obstacles in his life, and he is now attending college majoring in English Education. The kid has a talent for writing like none other I’ve ever seen.
3. Um. I’m really racking my brain for this last one, but the only thing I can come up with is that I’m a lefty. It makes shooting rifles, pistols, and shotguns rather interesting since a big majority of the Corps is right handed. I end up having to learn a lot of things backwards.

Question: How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

I’ve been blogging for two and a half years. I started out as a political commentator and was able to work up a pretty good following before I went on a guard duty and stopped blogging. I joined CJ on ASP after coming off the guard duty. I was already looking at converting my political blog into a MilBlog at that point and joining ASP seemed like the best option.

Question: What is your military experience?

My military experience is rather boring compared to a lot of other guys in the Corps these days. I’ve spent my entire career thus far in beautiful Camp Lejeune. I was an admin guy by training, but I was moved to the computer section to maintain the consolidated admin center’s assets since I was very tech savy. I reenlisted in 2006 and became a Career Retention Specialist. I am the guy everyone goes through when they want to go on any type of special duty assignment or want to reenlist. It’s a pretty rewarding job so far and I’m really enjoying it.

Question: What are some of your other favorite Milblogs?

Some of the other MilBlogs I really enjoy are some that a lot of people may not be aware of. In no particular order I have a couple of Marine Combat Artists that I read. Fire and Ice (http://mdfay.blogspot.com) and Sketchpad Warrior (http://kjbattles.blogspot.com/). There is also a Marine with History Division that is a great writer. He is Marine Historian (http://marinehistorian.blogspot.com). Some of the more well known MilBloggers I like are SandGram (http://sandgram.blogspot.com/) and One Marine’s View (http://www.onemarinesview.com/).

Question: What has been the biggest factor in helping you create and publish a successful blog?

I have CJ to thank for creating A Soldier’s Perspective. I joined him after he had a great base of readers. Those readers accepted me pretty much right off the bat. I think all of us at ASP maintain a pretty good blog because we write how we feel, we try to keep things as civil as we can, and we reach out to our readers and include them in a big portion of our online lives.

Question: Do you have anything else you would like us to mention about you, your blog, or your readers?

I would like to mention that all of the support for the troops coming from Americans, especially those who are regular MilBlog readers, is awe inspiring. I have never met a bigger group of people who care so passionately about those who serve in the military. I want to tell them all thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything they do!

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Navy Personnel as of May 25, 2007

Active Duty: 340,439

Officers: 51,323

Enlisted: 284,764

Midshipmen: 4,352

Ready Reserve: 129,077 [As of 07 March]

Selected Reserves: 69,117

Individual Ready Reserve: 59,960

Reserves currently mobilized: 5,646 [As of 16 May]

Personnel on deployment: 59,312

Navy Department Civilian Employees: 174,908

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It includes unit roster lists, draft registration cards, news reels, POW lists 

Ancestry.com, a Web site designed to allow users to trace their family history, announced today that it has posted what it describes as the largest collection of U.S. military records available and searchable online.

The U.S. Military Collection, which includes 90 million names, spans more than four centuries of American history, from the 1600s through the Vietnam War, Ancestry.com said.

Read more at ComputerWorld.com

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Free to Search Jobs and Post Jobs

Search open jobs from military-friendly employers and scan offerings from Featured Employers. Whether you are just leaving the service, or looking to change careers or to move up in your current field, your military background will give you an edge with the employers listed in Joe’s Jobs. They are looking for you!

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By THOMAS WAGNER
Associated Press Writer
Published May 17, 2007, 9:46 AM CDT

BAGHDAD — Attackers who ambushed a U.S. military convoy apparently stole the dog tags of one of the four American soldiers killed, the military said Thursday as it pressed its massive search for three U.S. troops feared captured by al-Qaida last week.

Mortar rounds hit a U.S. Air Force base north of Baghdad, destroying one helicopter and damaging nine others, police said, and an explosion rocked the Green Zone in the third attack in three days on the heavily fortified area in central Baghdad where the U.S. Embassy is located and Iraq’s government and parliament meets.

Read more at ChicagoTribune.com

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Diary Of  author unknown

16 Degrees with a light breeze. Going home after my second week of freezing temps to my warm home in SoCal. Take a walk on the beach, ride a horse, climb a mountain and get back to living. I’m tired of the cold.

READ MORE HERE

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Military Personnel Banned From Using 13 ‘Entertainment’ Web Sites

(CBS) DENVER—Soldiers serving overseas will lose some of their online links to friends and loved ones back home under a Department of Defense policy that a high-ranking Army official said would take effect Monday.

The Defense Department will begin blocking access “worldwide” to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites on its computers and networks, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.

The policy is being implemented to protect information and reduce drag on the department’s networks, according to Bell.

“This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge,” the memo said.

The armed services have long barred members of the military from sharing information that could jeopardize their missions or safety, whether electronically or by other means.

The new policy is different because it creates a blanket ban on several sites used by military personnel to exchange messages, pictures, video and audio with family and friends.

Members of the military can still access the sites on their own computers and networks, but Defense Department computers and networks are the only ones available to many soldiers and sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraqi insurgents or their supporters have been posting videos on YouTube at least since last fall. The Army recently began posting videos on YouTube showing soldiers defeating insurgents and befriending Iraqis.

But the new rules mean many military personnel won’t be able to watch those achievements - at least not on military computers.

If the restrictions are intended to prevent soldiers from giving or receiving bad news, they could also prevent them from providing positive reports from the field, said Noah Shachtman, who runs a national security blog for Wired Magazine.

“This is as much an information war as it is bombs and bullets,” he said. “And they are muzzling their best voices.”

Spc. Jean-Paul Borda, founder of military blog aggregator Milblogging.com, wrote that the latest policy announcement is unlikely to silence troops posting online: “…the fact that I’m blogging right now, pretty much speaks for itself.”

The sites covered by the ban are the video-sharing sites YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos, and FileCabi, the social networking sites MySpace, BlackPlanet and Hi5, music sites Pandora, MTV, and 1.fm, and live365, and the photo-sharing site Photobucket.

Several companies have instituted similar bans, saying recreational sites drain productivity.

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Ok, Im going to pick a scab here but if you don’t like it then go watch Dr Phil or something.

On April 16,2007  VT suffered a great loss as one idiot thought he could make 2 wrongs right and killed several innocent students.

On April 20, 1999, a couple other idiots did a similar act at Columbine HighSchool.

The point is that after the VT event the flag was ordered to be flown at half mast. 
The flag flown at half-mast is a symbol to remember someone who has died.  That can be a well-known person or a group of people like the massacre at Virginia Tech recently.  And the flying of the flag at half-mast is a sign of respect for someone we feel sorry for who has died.

I ask a simple question, why haven’t we noticed that we haven’t been flying any flags for those warriors paying the ultimate sacrifice?
Some would say, fly the flag half mast until the war in Iraq/Afghanistan is over.

But what if we simply just lowered the flag half mast when a service member died from a particular state? That state capital could lower its flag for a day couldn’t it? Wait a second, would that require someone to give a crap and to do somthing? 

The Marines are at war and America is at the mall I read on a dry erase board from another warrior and he nailed it.

READ MORE HERE

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The United States is moving ahead with a new military command structure for Africa, consolidating all U.S. activity on the continent. Africa Command will not be complete until late next year (last quarter of 2008), but Pentagon officials say there are no plans to send in any additional combat units. The 1700 American troops now in Djibouti work on training, security and humanitarian projects.

Read more at AllAmericanPatriots.com

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