Part I

Editorial note: I thought I was in it Saturday during the conference, but I found it Monday driving home….

The comments from the conference are mulitplying (go figure!) and posted at Andi’s World. Great reads all, but the best one is this one from Steve Schippert from Threats Watch just goes to show you how a simple effort can help someone else.

I added Black Five’s discussion at the top of the entries, for I think it’s worth keeping in our thoughts as we blog: What is the “max range” of your blog?

I’ve had a little time to think over the MilBlogging Conference adventure. Here is some detail to go with a “take away” point:

From Part I:

Top levels “take away” points:

1) “Stay in your lane” is good guidance. Blog on what you know. With a rule like that, you should be bulletproof if a question is posed about how factual your commentary is.

In regards to that direction, have you noticed how hard it is to tell the person who just told you their story that they are wrong? If they told you another person’s story, it can be picked apart. When it’s yours to tell, just what will they say? Nada…or they’ll just whip out the ad hominum stuff and tell you how stupid you are. So…stick with what you know for sure.

The focus of 2/3rds of the Conference day was essentially discussions centered on blogging issues dealing with current world ops in the GWoT. Certainly, that provides an essential foundation for future MilBlogging, for the comments on “think carefully about who is reading this blog” is a fitting framework for all other blogging for the community (not a bad idea for everyone else, too…what if kids on MySpace posted based on what their parent’s reaction would be…but I digress).

I see several subdivisions of MilBlogs and by wrtiing this, I think it will help frame what people are doing, as well as maybe someone reading this will realize they may have a part to play as well.

1) MilBlogs that are fundimentally daily diaries. Smash and CJ got their starts there, and so much of the active duty blogs today are in this “model.” At the conference, CJ admitted this was his venting method during his time in theater, and Smash initially did it to get the word back home to his family (he has since matured, or “evolved” to being our BlogDaddy, so I’m looking for a present at Christmas this year). Begun as coping mechanisms, they are, in fact, history being recorded from a first person’s view, with out the Monday Morning Quarterbacking. One other blog like this of note is no longer active, the 365 and a Wakeup blog of Capt Danjel Bout, CA National Guard, but is one of the finest pieces of writing I have found.

2) MilBlogs that are designed as support networks, out in the open bulletin boards. The panel discussion on this topic was amazing. The power of the Internet, combined with some family members wanting information, turned these early seekers into mentors for spouses and parents all over the country. Carla, of Some Soldier’s Mom and Deb of Marine Corps Moms are two like this. Included in this area would be blogs such as Soldier’s Angels.

3) MilBlogs written by non-active duty people with significant “discrete knowledge” and usually are analysis/commentary on geo-political/military matters. Not constrained by DoD rules, and also “out of the loop” of current tactical/startegic info, these blogs stand to be a powerful part of the “Army of Davids” that Col Austin Bay referenced several times during his conference remarks. The insight provided by these blogs can help either the MSM or just plain old citizens understand the issues in military operations more consisely. Threats Watch is one of these, and the work of Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail is another of note. I would also put Eagle Speak here, for he runs a great blog on stuff that tends to the leagl side of maritime affairs, with piracy being a major topic these days.

4) Personal historical MilBlogs. Cheaper and easier than publishing a book, and you don’t need an editor to tell you to do parts over…lots of veterans fit here, such as much of my current work. I have also found it quite rewarding to document storeis of many of the older vets I find.

5) Organizational blogs designed particularly to support the troops. There are many, but at the moment I’m thinking it’s pretty late and I can continue this discussion later.

As far as the blogs mentioned above, I linked them for some quick examples, but I know there are many more that fall into the same groupings. My blogroll has plenty of them to pick from.

That’s about enough for the moment. Again, as I got taught: to tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. Here’s the wrap up: By categorizing the main discussions of MilBlogs, I think it will help each blogger frame where “their lane” may be, and therefore keep the work applicable and effective in the greater discussions of our society. I also think the rest of the world will better know where to go to read, and some of them will realize they are an intergral part of the MilBlog community, they just haven’t taken the time to get going yet. Later, it will help subdivide our networking for any efforts we undertake.

Comments welcome.

Part II

I can’t help but feel something pretty powerful happened yesterday, and, with luck, years from now, about 150 of us can say “back at the first conference, we wore jeans and T-Shirts…none of this fancy black tie stuff was allowed!”

While the air of informality reigned, it was the meeting and greeting and putting faces to text, followed by exciting conversation and thought provoking panel discussions.

Top levels “take away” points:

1) “Stay in your lane” is good guidance. Blog on what you know. With a rule like that, you should be bulletproof if a question is posed about how factual your commentary is.

2) Don’t underestimate the “max effective range” of your comments. The well placed furor over Fran’s Steakhouse lease began when FbL’s not very big readership blog made those fateful remarks, that, within days, became national level news in the MSM! Other stories were told that indicated similar results, in the most unexpected manner.

3) Your stories relating to military life and issues can be a powerful factor in closing the gap between the military/ex-military and the non-serving public. Share them wisely.

4) A lady who does marketing for a living indicated the rise of the blogosphere pretty much coincides with the declining readership of the dead tree media. One more powerful point: They don’t augment their understanding of events with blogs, they turn to the blogs for info. Take a moment to soak that one in.

5) She also said psychology studies show when a message of fear is delivered via TV, the viewer connects “better” with the message, which also makes the viewer more attentive to the commercials. That means the fear produces better results for the advertisers, which means the show/network can make more dollars this way. It pays to make us fearful….

6) Chuck Z says he’s upset that the MSM doesn’t tell the bad. Interesting point that makes you go “HUH?” until you hear the rest. He told of an insurgent who gunned down his own nephew so he could get a shot at two of Chuck’s sergeants. That was never in the news. Other examples followed that one.

7) Also from Chuck Z, he says it’s a great feeling to walk into a wounded service person’s room and bring them a laptop that makes a significant change in their life. Valour-IT – it’s making a difference in a big way.

8) Given the changing sources of sought out information coming from blogs, we bloggers have become “accidental journalists.” I’d say not only is that interesting, it also should give us some reason to not repeat those mistakes we complain about the MSM making, lest we fall victim to them ourselves as time passes and this form of info sharing becomes part of the MSM of the future.

9) Our efforts provide “individuals with discrete knowledge.” Back to take away lesson 1: Use it wisely, particularly by staying in your area of expertise. Resist the urge to pretend you know more than you do.

More to come. I’m still enroute home and visiting.

Some earlier info…

The first session is over and the discussion was centered on the purpose and (implied) the responsibility of MilBloggers. I’m sure the main site is going to cover this well.

The side discussions have been interesting. After thinking Neptunus Lex was this completely amazing writer of the “Rythyms” blogvel, I now know he has had assistance from a ghost….well, it’s still good anyhow, and I understand how the ghost writing made the detail of another area fit the overall “look and feel” of reality the Lex so masterfully weaves into the online story.

More later, but this is “from my perspective,” something that was highlighted as to what we can do best in the MilBlogging universe.

Part I

Lesson learned: When you are having the first conference and the population is largely those who don’t post their pictures, tell everyone to bring one of those spring steel crickets, like they used with the airborne troops on D-Day.

Got there at 8PM, the bar was packed and no one was discernably standing at the entrance, with a box of “Hello, My Name Is” stickers. I got a drink and stood back doing the visual sweep. I did notice a couple in one of the side halls, the women looking ever so slightly familiar. Another guy wandered in and leaned against the door frame, looking around. I told him he’d have to push up to the bar to get help. He said “I’m supposed to be meeting a group of people here at 8:30, but we don’t know what each other look like.” DING, DING, DING! It was DadManly. Hand shake, a chuckle, and then I approached the couple. It was Smash and spouse. Buzz Patterson zipped thru, and then we began to form up quickly. Andi had a stack of blank white name tags and the obligatory fat black pen, and those of us who had filled one table made ours. I then slef-appointed and figured the best way to meet everyone was to be the name tag person. Lots and lots of people showed up. Lots of good conversations, and nice to put faces and real names to the reading….

The discussions were from ackward, like “ummm…I haven’t read your blog…” to discussions on the status of books, self funded trips to the ‘Stan, and “I’m glad to see you here.”

It’s late. Chap: Too bad you’re on TAD, because there are a few people here you’d really enjoy.

More later (no promise as to when)!

I’m checked in after a long drive and three family visits enroute, and will be heading to Fran’s Restaurant tonight for the pre-MilBlogging Conference join up, but more importantly, to shake a few hands and say a few words of thanks to our service personnel, while trying not to interupt their free steak dinner.

LCDR and Mrs Smash will be here, and I think one other tagged with being a navy type in the list of attendees. I’m looking forward to getting to know some of the people I have read much of over the last two years.

I was hoping Capt Lex would make an excuse to make a cross country, but….he’s busy, I guess, becoming an systems engineer….

If you’re not already briefed in on the furor over Fran’s lease not being renewed, go here, read and chase the links. Hilton boned this one up (even the MSM is writing negative things!). Fran is also looking to set up a fund to keep the dinners for the wounded personnel from Walter Reed going. If you have a few spare $$$, that may be a good place to drop them.

More later!

FbL has an update on the progress of one wounded serviceman, a recipient of a laptop and voice activated software several months back.

Note this:

The laptop was the first step to the road to recovery. It proved that he was going to be able to do all the things that he did before.

For more info, and to see what a bunch of committed, Type A competitors can do when a need arises, check out this link to my post on the Veteran’s Day 2005 fund raising drive…

Valour-IT is an ongoing project. Please consider supporting it as you can.

Michael Yon, a former SF Operator turned freelance reporter, is in the States and has made an intersting observation, and is calling for help from retired military people:

The difference a year can make is staggering. One year ago, the gap between the ground reports from Iraq from military friends prompted my travel to Iraq to see for myself just what was happening. The dispatches posted to these pages over the ensuing months were an attempt to bridge that gap. Now that I’m back in the United States for a time, trying wring every bit of information of the war out of the news, only to come up dry most days, it’s become clear that in just under a year, the media gap has morphed into a chasm. Before this thing becomes a black hole, it’s time for a few good men and women to put their military experience and expertise to use in an operation that can create an alternative channel that will allow frontline information to break through and be heard.

Here’s the post with his plea for those with connections to the real men and women on the front lines to step up to the plate and become the conduits for the news to flow from our service members.

Think of it as a call to arms, to quit grumbling about those PAO types who were good for nothing, and become one. Who can sniff out a (let’s be polite) “fake” story better than those who have been there, and also, who can know it’s a good story for the same reasons? Most likely you also have connections to friends and family who are in some far flung corner of the world on a deployment, doing the hard work, and not having it reported, at all, let alone the way it is.

Here’s the unabridged direction from Michael:

Call for Volunteers: Any retired military personnel interested in the Frontline Forum, please email to [email protected], and put “Volunteer” in the subject heading. Please describe briefly your military experience and an estimate to the number of hours per week you can spend reading stories from troops. If you have skills that are in some way related to this project, please include a description of those skills in your email. Let us know what you can do and how much of it you are willing and able to do. Someone will get back to you soon. While the Volunteers organize, we’ll build the forum, network with others who are in touch with our troops, and when all is ready, we can turn on the faucets and open the flow of frontline news.

On the Rush Limbaugh show a few days ago a caller made a great point: Many years from now, the people researching what this time was all about will pull up articles from the NYT and Washington Post. He was a little discouraged, saying “they have alredy beat us, because they have written it the way they want and now it’s history.”
Michael’s call for volunteers may well be a way to counter the press bias for those of two and more generations down the road, who will no longer have the view of those who were there. So…time to quit grumbling about the Has Been Media and get out to poke a stick in thier eye, with that valuable tool called “truth.”

Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the Open Thread!

Can you help?

They fought so that others may live
That destitute nations be free.

They sacrificed the very things
That stand for democracy.

They lost their lives heroically
That war and suffering would cease.

God bless them all and may their souls
Forever rest in peace.

Found in Stalag Luft IV during WWII

I found this on the home page of Museum of the Soldier.

It fits the men and women of today just as well as it did 60+ years ago.

To begin with, don’t forget the Valour-IT Project is an ongoing thing. The fund raiser from 11/2-11/11/05 was but a moment to leverage off the Veteran’s Day Holiday for donations.

I was away from the net from Friday afternoon until last night. I had a hard time finind the consolidted After Action Report (AAR) on the big blogs (Mudville Gazette, Black Five, etc. I did find this wrap up on the project webiste (go figure!) and it’s incredible.

Note how a bunch of competetion by nature people got over enthused and instead of taking the $21,000 mark as the goal, each service branch team took that amount on as their goal. I was amazed myself to find out I hadn’t read the directions in my promotion, but I’ll take this type of failure any day….

Here’s the AAR from FbL, the project coordinator of Soldier’s Angels for this project, who took on this important project for our troops:

Fundraising Competition Totals

What can be said in the face of such amazing generosity, creativity and hard work? Mere words do not do justice to the impact you all will have on the wounded warriors who benefit from this. And superlatives cannot begin to describe the efforts and activities of those who have made it happen. You have gone far above and beyond the call of duty!

As for me, saying “thank you,” feels strange because I am not the one benefitting from this. But I sit here in awe and in tears as I try to comprehend the scope of what you have accomplished in these last ten days, and what it will do for beneficiaries of Valour-IT. It has exceeded expectations by such a scale that I can’t wrap my brain around it.

Our first fundraiser (in August) netted about $15,000 in three long weeks. I thought I was stepping out in faith by setting the bar for this one at $21,000 total in ten short days. Instead, you have more than quadrupled that! And there is still more to come as checks are counted and corporate matching funds come in. Current* totals (including auctions and online contributions not made through a team) are:

Donations Funds Average

Marines
209 $19,607.00 $93.81

Air Force
123 $11,114.11 $90.36

Army
258 $23,652.57 $91.68

Navy
223 $23,831.76 $106.87

Unaffiliated
154 $10,128.00 $65.77

Totals
967 $88,333.44 $91.35

*The information in the table above is not official. It is gleaned from automated totals for teams as of midnight PST on November 11, the information from team auctions, and the PayPal email notifications of donations made. It does not include checks mailed in (believed to be a minimum of $5,000), or matching funds (unknown). When those totals become available (hopefully by Tuesday), this information will be updated and a final winning team can be declared.

Watch for another post soon, detailing significant contributions of time, PR, and hard work of various people.

posted by FbL @ 9:28 AM

I’m not sure if it’s factored in above (but I imagine it is) a total of $2638 was raised by things put up for auction by various people. Not bad for a bunch of people sitting around in their pj’s at a computer, I’d say!

As noted, “we” in the teams, really screwed up and assumed we were all supposed to get $21K each. I hate it when mistakes like this happen, but the up side is it seems someone with “means” (read money and a heart) has taken note of the success of the 10 days of fund raising and is discussing significant support for the Valour-IT Project. Check out what FbL says here, and, as she orders, pray and cross your fingers for success in the negotiaions…

The winners are the current comabt vets who have stepped up to the plate and taken what came their way. Thanks to all for your support.

Again, a reminder that this isn’t a one time project fund raiser, and not only this project, but others, need your support on an onging basis.

BZ!

First order of business: It’s the last day of the Valour-IT Project campaign to collect funds in the “friendly competition” between service barnches. It is by no means the end of the doantions that are needed for this worthwhile project. The collection campaign was a great vehicle to get the competitive jiuces flowing for all involved. Please consider regularly donation to the cause. Thanks for the donantions, and if you’re inclined to give (or give more), please go to Mudville Gazette and donate for Team Air Force!

Today’s Topic:

An easy way to send a note of thanks to the troops is here. Please consider taking advantage of the opportunity to say it.

This day is a day to honor those who have served and are serving. Many others can speak to the subject far more eloqunetly than I, but I took a moment this morning to consider what is different about this day, this year.

It is part of a continuing trend to show respect and offer thanks to former and persent military members. This trend began about 15 years ago with Desert Shield/Desert Storm. That’s a good think, which occurred close to 20 years after we extracted ourselves militarily from the Vietnam War.

I graduated from high school and had no draft hanging over my head. I came of age the first year this occured, yet I enetered the profession, and stayed a total of 24 years.

Veteran’s Days were not the same back then. It was still a time when many in society only occasionally acknowledged your service.

It’s different now. I was too young to serve in Vietnam, and spent my years training against the Soviet Bloc threat, for the “big one,” where the realistic threat of global thermonuclear warfare wasn’t out of the question. I came how after we “won” by making the enemy spend themselves out of the picture.

I enjoy finding and talking to veterans. The ones from WWII as pretty much at peace with how they were treated then, and now. I can’t really say much about the Korean War veterans, for I have not had the chance to sit down and talk with any of them. Certainly those who were still wearing butter bars when I retired, and are now coming into their own as the leaders of large units, have been shown honor and respect worthy of their sacrifice.

Vietnam veterans still seem to be that group held off to the side in this entire equation. When I was out a few weeks ago doing a pick up, I ran into a man with a tree trimming service. We got talking and he had spent a tour in Vietnam with Special Forces. We talked some of the details with that, but then he told me about his return to the “The World.” Not a pretty sight. While he stated it matter of factly, you could feel the undercurrent of emotional distress, and see the pain in his eyes. A wound not healed, yet he acknowledged how much better it has become in these following years. As he finished his cigarette, I watched him unconsciously field strip the butt. I commented “old habits die hard.” At that point, he realized what he had done, then smiled and said “we did that so the enemy wouldn’t find us.” I knew that, but for a man with one enlistment, it was confirmation to me that he had been one of the men who stood up to face off against the surrogate enemy of the NVA and VC in those tenuous years.

If you know a Vietnam Vet, I’d ask you make a special effort to thank them today, in what ever way you can. While what’s done is done, a well delivered “Thank You” today will help offset the ones not received.

I think I’ll dig out Wayne’s card and give him a call today.