(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.
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Soldiers are already using Twitter and YouTube overseas, and now troops at home are starting to use various social tools.
Lt. Gen. William Caldwell is Commander of the Combined Armed Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.
On Wednesday's Daily Debrief, he told Amy Morris about why he blogs -- and why he's encouraging his students and staff to do it, as well...
The Army is also starting a pilot program on a wiki site for field manual development. This will begin July 2.
"The intent here is that we want to employ knowledge management [and] help shape the future of our Army's learning process so that, ultimately, these digital natives -- these young men and women coming in today -- will be far more engaged in helping us transfer best practices from one individual to another."
Read the entire story here.
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Read the entire story here.
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I hope the Coast Guard does follow the Army's example. In recent years when I've held the Milbloggies, I haven't been able to include the Coasties because of the limited number of active bloggers, so hopefully we see more and more Coasties using Social Media to tell their story.
High Seas?! Pirates!? Pfft... You kidding me?! Who wouldn't wanna hear more?!!
Here's an excerpt from the story:
The Coast Guard in recent months has embraced web 2.0: The service launched a new multimedia site and took enthusiastically to Twitter. Even Adm. Thad Allen, the Coast Guard commandant, has been updating his blog. And some smart search-and-rescue controllers even used Facebook to locate an overdue mariner. It’s something of an about-face for the service, which once looked on the new media with some suspicion...
Over at CGBlog, an unofficial Coast Guard blog, Ryan Erickson recently wondered if the Coast Guard would follow suit by giving its personnel more access to social networks. “As some of you already know we on the Coast Guard network can already get to, and without any work-around, sites such as Delicious and Flickr,” he wrote. “But the popular social site of Facebook and the micro-blogging system of Twitter have been cut off from the inside… for the most part.”
Read the entire story here.
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Heck, a year ago if you had asked me my opinion of the military and their use of social networking tools, I would've told you my cat [Mr. Muffin] was more likely to use social media tools. And he eats lying down. Now that the Army has beat Mr. Muffin (aka Fat Face) in the race to using Twitter, I'm now 100 percent convinced he's the laziest cat in the world. Damn.
Here's the story:
(Federal Computer Week) Now, perhaps, a case might be made that social media is more than a passing fad.
Granted, a year ago — even just six months ago — it seemed that feds spent more time talking about social networking than actually doing it. Social-media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and GovLoop were popping up all over the place, but the social-media champions were greatly outnumbered by the skeptics, who raised the usual objections:
“Social networking is nothing but a time suck.”
“Facebook is fine for connecting with friends but has no place at the office.”
“The security risks far outweigh the benefits.”
Read the entire story here.
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“(The future learning division is) looking into different media and how we might be able to use it,” said Col. John Thompson, AETC Future Learning Division director. “We look at any sort of innovation to improve the efficiency or effectiveness of our education and training programs.”
Twitter allows users to file “tweets” posing questions, posting links to articles or general status updates. Brevity is key as users are allotted only 140 characters for their posts.
The division’s entrance into Twitter coincides with top Department of Defense officials announcing the benefits of social networking as a “huge strategic asset for the United States” citing social networking Web sites use in allowing information to continue to flow about recent conflicts from the Iran election.
Read the entire story here.
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(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.
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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 ;)
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I just received a number of back issues of Veritas, the magazine of the Royal Military Colleges Club of Canada, and was encouraged to find none other than the dean of Canadian military historians, Jack Granatstein, echoing those concerns in his convocation address to the Class of 2007...
Read the entire story here.
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“If they put these kind of conditions on it, then I’d say the whole program will collapse,” said Kelly McBride, Ethics Group Leader at the Poynter Institute, a media training facility and think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla. “It’s not meant to be a public relations program for the military.”
Read the entire story here.
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Over at The Sandbox, Old Blue from Bill and Bob’s Excellent Afghan Adventure is pleading with military bloggers to keep their blogs online, even if they return home from deployment and no longer feel a need to write. I’ve written about this in the past, and also mentioned it about a week ago after another blogger wrote about it. Unfortunately, many blogs do go inactive or go completely offline once the blogger returns home from deployment or leaves the service. As great as it would be to keep all these blogs online, I completely understand why many delete their blog. I receive dozens of emails a month from Milblogging users pointing out military blogs in the index that have been deleted; some from the original authors. There is a lot more to Old Blue’s story, so check out the excerpt below but also pay The Sandbox a visit for the full story.
Here is my plea: Don't delete your blog. Please don't delete your blog. Whether you realize it or not, whether you can find a post-deployment voice or not, whether or not you feel that you can share the experiences of being a veteran warrior returning to a country that seems to have forgotten or chooses to ignore, please don't delete your blog. You have written history, and someday there will be those who wish to know what you saw, how you felt, how the events such as the summits, the conferences, the elections, the official high level stuff that others will care to prognosticate, spin, alter and otherwise fold, spindle or mutilate affected you as an entity who wore one pair of boots. Someday your story may affect someone's perception of how the big picture looked, and how your little picture fit into the big picture.
It's bigger than you. If you are paying for a domain and you wish to stop, get a blogspot address and import your old posts. Please. It's too easy.
Every historian wants to be the one who unearths the next treasure trove of long-forgotten letters from the front in an old trunk in an attic. We have done more documentation of this war from the ground level than any other war. Except this war, which has been so well documented via electrons, is likely to be the least well-documented for posterity because electrons fade away or are deleted.
So, from one blogger to another (among thousands of others), please keep your blog up on the net, even if you never write in it again.
Personally I have to say: Thanks to my Mom who has encouraged me to keep blogging since 2004. Although, she still spell-check’s my blog and sends me grammar corrections via email. Seriously, she really motivates me. I mean here I am almost 35 years old, and she’ll still call me to make sure I’m wearing my coat when it’s cold outside or to tell me to wear sunblock when the sun is out. She’ll always be a Mom [Bless Her Heart]. But honestly, there’s never a more AWESOME experience than having your Mom call you kiddy names in front of your adult friends or give you life wisdom like “never drive with your eyes closed” --- which she usually tells me when I leave her house to drive a half mile back home.
Good times, High Fives All Around!
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Responding to news as fast as it happens is a struggle for the service, said Lindy Kyzer, a public affairs specialist with the Army’s Online and Social Media Division.
“People are used to the immediacy of getting answers when they want them,” Kyzer said at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement’s Social Media for DOD Government conference in Fairfax County, Va.
Read the entire story here.
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Interested in learning as much information as she could about him, she had periodically searched online. One day, she somewhat unexpectedly found a posting about his wartime diaries at the UT Web site.
Read the entire story here.
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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.
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Hat tip to @PublicRelations.
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Here’s an excerpt from one of Danger Girl’s recent posts [a big fan of Matt Gallagher's writings]:
Kaboom was one of my fave milblogs . Written by Lt. Matt Gallagher ( Lt.G) during his deployment to Iraq from 2007-2008, it chronicled the day to day challenges and dangers faced by his platoon, a Stryker unit named "Gravediggers".
Lt. G's narratives were poetic, evocative, entertaining, frightening, infuriating and thought provoking - but never an indictment of the war.
Read her entire post here.
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“Our NGB (social media) sites don't focus on recruiting as much as they do on telling our joint story and letting people who support the Guard have a place to share their opinions and connect with others who are in the same boat.”
Read the entire press release here.
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The diary, kept between between May 19, 1917 and March 6, 1918 while he was serving with the King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) and Royal Scottish Fusiliers, is full of vivid descriptions: a tearful farewell from Edinburgh; dodging "Jerry's" shrapnel in France; surviving gas attacks and the suffocating mud; the "terrible yet wonderful" experience of going over the top; the boredom of life in the trenches.
Read the entire story here.
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Honestly though, I don't know any of the facts and really have no interest to find out. Plus, I can't seem to find my monocle...
Anyway, if you want to read more about the story for yourself, here’s an excerpt:
"Though the story has not yet gone public, this isn't a good time for milblogger's freedom of speech. I myself am facing potential charges for having a different political opinion than some of my leadership believes I should, and another milblogger who shall remain nameless is as well. Certain prominent milblogs, especially ones from Iraq and Afghanistan, have been removed-Pink's War, Big Tobacco, and LT G among them. Too much honesty, too much humor, too much reality. Too much free thinking.
In something straight out of Joseph Heller, however, at the same time that some are getting in trouble for voicing opinions, the Army has apparently decided that it wants to hear Soldier's stories on social networking sites..."
You can read the entire story here.
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