(Aish.com)  Saturday night, December 27, the seventh night of Chanukah. I'm listening to the news at home that the IDF has launched a major operation. They called it "Cast Lead," from the song by Chaim Nachman Bialik known to every Israeli child, about a dreidel made of cast lead. Suddenly, a children's Chanukah song has become an army operation. "This is it. Maybe it'll put an end to the suffering in the South. It's no accident that they gave the operation this name. The courage of the Maccabees lives within us!" I think to myself.

Eight years of never-ending mortar attacks. Eight years of air-raid sirens. Eight years of destroyed streets and homes. Eight years of fear. An entire generation of children in the south born into this; all they know is a life of "red alerts" and bomb shelters. "Color Red" is the slogan over the PA system that warns you you've got 15 seconds to run to shelter. And in the midst of this "routine," people try to lead normal lives. Eight years of Israelis in the south feeling abandoned. Maybe we'll finally be able to change things.

The call isn't long in coming. At 2 AM, the phone rings. It's my unit commander. "Ephraim, it's an emergency call-up! Report to the unit first thing tomorrow morning."

Read the entire story here.

(Fast Company)  Twitter gained a lot of credibility thanks to its use by Iranian protestors recently, and we already knew that it was useful for spreading breaking news. But did you know that NATO, the global military machine, Twitters too?

Check out NATO's main feed at Twitter here. It's a real mixture of news: Job opportunities, internal organizational matters, news feeds from Afghanistan and Iraq, links to NATO publications, and so on--basically it's like a traditional PR feed mixed with interesting tidbits. Of course the Tweets are careful to remain apolitical, in keeping with NATO policy, and they're never going to reveal any sensitive info. Unless someone makes a slip-up.

Read the entire story here.

If you’re on Twitter, don’t forget to use hashtag #MilitaryMon each and every Monday to show your support for the troops.   It's catching on thanks to Greta and Carson and to hundreds of other Twitter users.  Even more Hollywood celebrities are on board like Alyssa Milano [see screenshot above].  Carson Daly has been plugging it and doing his best to get more Hollywood to use their starpower.  Which is totally awesome.  I pretty much respect anyone who supports the troops.  But with Alyssa, I have to say I respect her even more because of her work as an actor and artist.  I mean, seriously, did anyone ever hear her voice in Ghostbusters: The Video Game as Sigourney Weaver?  Or watch her play Phoebe on Charmed? 

Now she’s on Twitter supporting #MilitaryMon...

I smell Lifetime Achievement award ;)

As most of you probably know, news organizations and blogs have been buzzing about the DoD and social media.  I recently started tracking Google News alerts for stories related to Twitter and the military --- and my inbox has been filling up with a hundred articles each week.  Below is an excerpt from a Nextgov article that discusses Navy Adm. Mike Mullen who tweets.  Fun fact:  Navy Adm. Mike Mullen tweeted for the first time on April 3rd.  He even added himself to the wefollow Twitter directory.  That's pretty cool.  But I'll honest, now I’m waiting for his YouTube video of him jamming with the rest of the staff to Guitar Hero. 

All I can say is:  Move over, Susan Boyle.

Here’s an excerpt to the article:

In response to a question about Twitter, Gates noted, "there are clearly a number of governments, around the world, that try to control these communications ... [they] try to control the Internet and so on. "

But, he said, these governments "can't draw the net tight enough to stop everything.... If you can't text, then you Twitter.... My guess is, in some of these countries, that the leadership is kind of like me. They don't have a clue what it's about."

Gates said he did not use Twitter nor did he have a Facebook page. But Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he does Twitter. In a Tweet after the news conference he said Twitter is "critical and meets needs for flexibility and adaptability."

He added he used Twitter to stay in touch with the 2 million troops whose average age is in the 20s and who grew up with Internet-based communications. The 63-year-old Mullen said even though he might not be as facile using Twitter as the young troops he commands, it was important for senior leaders to understand and use social networks. "I think communicating that way and moving information around that way, whether it's administrative information or information in warfare, is absolutely critical," he said.

Read the entire story here.  And you can follow Adm. Mike Mullen on Twitter here.

Hat tip to @PublicRelations.

Mitch Wagner has a good story on the recent news about the Army unblocking some social media sites.  Mitch goes a bit further in his story questioning why some social media sites were unblocked, but not others such as MySpace. 

(InformationWeek)  Moreover, the order doesn't overturn a long-standing, military-wide ban on sites including MySpace, YouTube, and Pandora.

So why is Facebook allowed, but MySpace blocked? Why is video-sharing site Vimeo allowed, but YouTube blocked? Why is photo-sharing site Flickr allowed, but Photobucket blocked? Why block Pandora?

The Photobucket blockage is particularly puzzling. While Flickr is popular with big nerds like me because of its tasty Web 2.0 coating, in my personal experience, normal people -- such as the kind of people who join the military -- are more likely to use Photobucket to share pictures of their family and friends...

You can read the entire story here.

Granted, the Army has made amazing progress, considering most civilian workplaces I've been in, block pretty much the entire internet for productivity and security reasons. 

When it comes to unblocking some sites, but not others, I'm pretty sure I know why the Army still blocks MySpace, at least. I mean, just take a look at the screenshot above from my Profile page.  It makes my eyes hurt.  Seriously, I’m not even sure what I’m looking at. My wife set up the page for me when I was deployed to Iraq last year [Bless Her Heart], but apparently, lots of MySpace pages are overloaded with photo slideshows, videos, cute avatars, Flash movies, music --- ALL displayed on the same page.  Almost makes me pass out and throw up every time I view a MySpace page.

I'm assuming it’s probably safer to look directly into the sun.  From 2 feet away.  Just saying.

Charlene Li has a great write-up about the Navy hosting bloggers on the USS Nimitz.  Forget what you thought about the military cracking down on bloggers or imposing strict rules and regulations on blogging and other forms of online communication.  Over the last several months --- lo and behold --- the DoD has been adopting social media at an impressive pace.  Here's an excerpt from the story that was posted today: 

(VatorNews)  When the Navy issued the invitation for 16 bloggers to spend a day on the USS Nimitz, I thought there had to be string attached, or that the Navy wanted to use us bloggers as propaganda spreaders. But hey, I'm used to people pitching me and trusted myself to be able to figure out the real story behind the Navy "story".

But surprisingly, there were no pre-conditions, no restrictions on access other than to safeguard our well-being. The schedule was packed with organized tours to different parts of the trip, but we were free to approach anyone and ask them anything...

You can read the entire story here.

On a sidenote, I’ve had the opportunity to attend a few hosted blogging events since 2004 when I first blogged from Afghanistan.  This year alone, I've been to Blackwater, The White House, even the world's largest tank farm.  But that being said, I really don’t get too excited about policy or things like that, unless of course it involves care packages or unicorns or ninjas.  In which case, if anyone knows about real-life Ninjas hosting an event for bloggers, I’m totally in.  Call me.

Heck, I’ll even wear a purple mask and wield a pair of my kid’s plastic nunchucks. TURTLE POWER!

(CNN)  Acevedo catalogued the atrocities in a diary he kept hidden in his pants, using a Sheaffer fountain pen to record what he saw all around. When the soldiers were on their forced death march, Acevedo asked to use his pen for a tracheotomy to save a soldier named George Buddeski. Metz refused...

Read the entire story here. 

If you want to view actual pages from Acevedo’s wartime diary, click the image above.  Several pages are available for viewing online.  The first written entry shown on the website says, "Was captured 6th of January 1945.".

The super awesome folks over at eMail Our Military have been compiling a list of Military Twitter users for quite some time on their website.    In fact, it sparked my plan to start indexing Military Microblogs via Twitter right here on Milblogging.com.   The eMail Our Military list numbers in the hundreds and is categorized by service members, wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, Moms, and more.   This past week they moved the list of military twitter users over to Floxee: a searchable tweetstream and Twitter directory.    Now you can track the conversations specifically for the Military group by visiting this link.

It never ceases to amaze me how fast technology moves, particularly with Twitter.   There are new Twitter applications and websites popping up online every day.  I would totally try coming up with a new Twitter idea on my own, except most of my free time at home has been spent changing diapers and potty training (which hasn't been going well).

In fact, to motivate my 3-year old, my wife hung up a Toy Transformer to the bathroom mirror lights as a reward for him using the potty.  You know, like bribery.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked too well and it’s been up for eight weeks now... 

I’m pretty sure Optimus Prime’s face is half-melted.

Solomon Fein is an amazing military blogger who has been sharing his experiences of World War II on his blog.  I’ve written about Solomon several times on Milblogging.com, including a brief interview I conducted with him, here and here.

Here’s a recent excerpt from his blog:

My son called this afternoon and wished me a happy memorial day and in the same breath asked why I neglected posting stuff on my blog for almost a month.

I told him that I was conflicted.

"Great!" he said, "Write about your conflict and why that is so."

I replied, " I've had many experiences that I just couldn't write about."

"For instance?" he questioned."

Well, there was a time where I had a detail to guard a train out of the city of Cherbourg with a load of cigarettes, to the freight yards of Fontainebleau, a famous town, outside of Paris.  The train of 12 cars of the infamous 40 N 8ers that were on a narrow gauge track was to leave at the early hours of the next morning under great secrecy.

Cigarettes were the foundation of the French monetary system.

I hear this could be the worst movie ever.  Of course, I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt since I was raised on the cartoon.   But seriously though,  you wouldn't even have to spend five minutes in the Military to know this film isn't technically accurate.  Who are they kidding?! I mean, where are the brightly-colored laser beams zipping across the screen by the thousands that never quite hit anyone.. or for that matter, anything?

Pffft.  I blame Hollywood.  I am soo disappointed. 

My kids have had more realistic battles with their Lego Transformers...