Just in case you were wondering what the social media policy is with the Nigerian Army, its peacekeeping soldiers have been ordered to stop using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networks during peacekeeping missions as the Army fears it might compromise security, reports the Nigeria Tribune.

Nigerian scam emails aside, the Nigerian Armed Forces is a major contributor to peacekeeping missions with the United Nations.

Full story here.

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In case you thought this story was over, Fox News is reporting that the woman who orchestrated the controversial photos of military moms breast-feeding their kids in uniform has been fired from her civilian job as an X-ray technician. 

In the same news report, Fox said both women in the picture have also been reprimanded by the Air Force for violating a rule, which, fun fact, states that military uniforms cannot be used to promote a product or cause.

And yes, I did crop the above Mom2Mom photo.

Click here to see the full pic via Air Force Times.

I’m sure this will not be the end of this story.

Full Fox New story here.

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World War II-era stories sought for new project. A new project launched by the Ohio Department of Aging and Ohio Department of Veterans Services seeks Ohio residents' experiences during World War II.  ODA Director Bonnie Kantor-Burman and Veterans Services Director Thomas Moe this week announced the launch of the departments' joint War Era Story Project, an effort that will pick up where the Department of Aging's award-winning 2009 Great Depression Story Project left off by collecting Ohioans' memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s...
(ChillicotheGazette)

Internet users unload anger on social media sites. Bitter enmity at the heart of communal unrest in western Burma has spilled online, with incendiary posts on social media sites reflecting deep-rooted hostilities in the region, experts said.  Several days of deadly sectarian violence have seen the government declare a state of emergency in Arakan state and talk of the clashes has lit up social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook...
(DVB)

Smithsonian explores the War of 1812 with new exhibit. The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery is opening a major exhibit on the War of 1812 with objects from Canada, Great Britain and the United States.  On Friday, the museum opens "1812: A Nation Emerges." It comes almost 200 years to the day from the nation's declaration of war against the British Empire. This "forgotten war" eventually led to the burning of the White House...
(Canada.com)

Coalition soldiers tap into smartphone technology to help allies. From the green of Southern Indiana farmland to the sands of the Afghan desert, coalition soldiers from around the world are tapping smartphone technology to become better-trained war fighters. "The premise is pretty simple: if we're going to fight with our allies in a coalition, then we should develop our capabilities as a coalition, test them as a coalition before we get to the fight," said U.S. Joint Staff Operational Manager John Miller...
(FOX59)

Space-A details now available on Facebook.  Catching space-available flights around the world should be a little easier for military travelers this summer if they use Facebook. Air Mobility Command earlier this year began posting daily flight information for 22 bases in Europe, Asia and the U.S., including the number of seats available and the category and number of travelers signed up for the various flights...
(Stars and Stripes)

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Not gonna lie, if I saw this aircraft rolling down Main Street on a flat bed truck, I may have thought the same thing.

Apparently, people spotted this UFO in the DC-area and the information quickly spread on Twitter and Facebook.

Anyway, it turns out the so-called UFO is nothing more than the X-47B, an unmanned military aircraft.

You can take off the foil hat now.

The same thing happened in 2011, only in Kansas.

You can watch the video here on Military.com from back then.

Image credit: JulieeLondon

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War Era Project to feature personal stories from 1940s. Two state agencies have joined forces on a project to collect personal stories from the people who lived through the years of World War II. Ohio Department of Aging Director Bonnie Kantor-Burman and Ohio Department of Veterans Services Director Thomas N. Mio began the joint effort titled, “War Era Story Project.”  Kantor-Burman said the effort will resume where the Department of Aging’s “Great Depression Story Project” left off in 2009 to collect memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s...
(The Morning Journal)

State collects WWII stories. The Ohio Department of Aging and Ohio Department of Veterans Services are sponsoring a joint War Era Story Project. It is designed to pick up where the 2009 Department of Aging’s Great Depression Story Project left off by collecting Ohioans’ memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s. The agencies are seeking stories by the people who lived them – from veterans of World War II, to the men, women and children at home...
(Cincinnati)

Stories from a war zone. HE disguised himself to flee the Taliban, escaped Pakistan on a fake passport, survived a boat journey to Australia and spent time at Woomera detention centre.  Now, Najaf Mazari is coming to Altona to tell his incredible story as captured in his bestselling book The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif.  His talk is part of Refugee Week (June 17-23) whose theme this year is 'restoring hope'.  Mr Mazari lost his father at age eight and half of his family in tribal conflict and warfare in Afghanistan...
(Wyndham Weekly)

Stories will remember WWII veterans.  Bill Phoennik, 90, remembers hearing the planes fly overhead in the darkness the night before the Normandy Invasion that began June 6, 1944. He was a young soldier in the U.S. Army stationed in England. A month after the invasion, Phoennik found himself in France helping to transport heavy equipment. He considers himself lucky as he was not wounded during the 13 months he and his fellow soldiers spent in France... 
(The Almanac)

Danville Man Compiles Years Of Civil War Research. What started with an interest in history has led a Danville man through more than a decade's worth of research on the Danville National Cemetery, a burial ground for Union soldiers.  Stuart Martin says it began when he was a child. He would pass the perfectly manicured rows of white, marble headstones and stare in awe. Today, he knows everything - every little detail about more than 1,200 of them. Ask him about one headstone, and he'll give you the life story of a soldier.  "Morgan and Gilbert Presley are brothers, they were in the eighth Tennessee cavalry," said Martin while glancing at a headstone...
(WSET)

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By now, you may have seen this news all over the web. 

Yesterday, the Associated Press ran a story about The Museum of the Confederacy located in Richmond, Virginia, and its efforts at solving the mystery of unidentified photographs in its collection.

According to the LA Times, the story, "was passed along repeatedly in social media circles throughout the day via Tweets, Facebook "likes," blog postings, news reports and more. On Yahoo News alone, the story was "liked" nearly 2,000 times and had more than 1,700 comments."

The three photos above are currently displayed on the museum's website, but it’s the photographs of the little girls drawing the most attention after being featured in the AP story.

The AP writes, “The photograph of one girl was found between the bodies of two soldiers — one Union, one Confederate, at Port Royal, Va., 150 years ago this June. The other was retrieved from a slain Union soldier's haversack in 1865 on a Virginia farm field days before a half-decade of blood-letting would end with a surrender signed not far away at Appomattox.”

Can you help solve the mystery?

The museum asks that if you think you can identify anyone in the photos please contact the Museum at 855-649-1861 x113 or by email (samcraghead -at- moc.org)

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Mum’s book keeps memory of soldier son alive. “If I keep talking and writing about him, he still stays alive.”  These are the words of Helena Tym, whose 19-year-old son Cyrus Thatcher was killed by a roadside bomb while he was on patrol in Afghanistan.  Saturday, June 2, when the Union Flags went out for the Diamond Jubilee, was the third anniversary of his death.  It was also the day Ms Tym’s book, ‘Chin Up, Head Down’, was published. Subtitled ‘A mother’s journey of madness and grief’ it is the story of the Caversham family since they were given the dreadful news in 2009...
(getreading)

A National Security Blog From Wired Widens Its Reach. Wired, a magazine that celebrates nerdiness with cover pieces like “How to be a Geek Dad,” has found a different audience of readers who are not coming from the programming circles of Silicon Valley. They are technology enthusiasts spread across military bases and mazelike corridors at the Pentagon.  In the five years since Wired.com started its Danger Room blog, it has attracted a steady following in the national security community. The blog has 35,094 Twitter followers, makes up 10 percent of the traffic on Wired.com, and has broken stories as geeky and alarming as the one on a virus spreading through drone cockpits and “burn pit” trash disposal exposure in Afghanistan. Danger Room appears to be reaching readers the military sometimes has trouble connecting with in its own ranks...
(New York Times)

Facebook Group Helps Military Parents. Our military families put their country's needs ahead of their own, and when children are involved, the sacrifice is even greater.  Now one military family getting adjusted in a new Killeen home is finding finding some extra support on Facebook.  "They're real true Army brats, they've never stayed at a school for a full year," Tarah Roberts says about 11-year old Cole and 7-year old Star.  They've Gone to a different school every year since kindergarten...
(KCENTV)

Myanmar Clashes Spur Web Use, Crackdown. An outbreak of sectarian violence in western Myanmar is helping nudge this once-reclusive country further into the Internet age as people take to the Web to condemn the clashes and help organize street protests of their own, creating a new set of challenges for the country's military-backed government.  President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in Rakhine state near Bangladesh in a televised address Sunday, effectively enabling military control of the area after unrest claimed at least 17 lives in recent days, according to state media...
(Wall Street Journal)

E-mail scam targets Department of Defense employees. New York Defense Department personnel, beware: The IRS is warning of an e-mail identity-theft scam that seeks sensitive financial information by falsely claiming recipients could be in line for additional compensation.  Department of Defense military members, civilian employees and DOD retirees are being targeted in a phishing scam under the bogus banner of the Defense Finance and Accounting Services -- complete with a ".mil" e-mail address.  The message suggests those currently getting disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs could receive additional funds from the Internal Revenue Service, said IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunder...
(silive.com)

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The Israel Defense Forces love to use social media.

The IDF has published a photo to its official Facebook page of two gay male IDF soldiers in uniform holding hands as they walk down a street.

The caption above the photo says, "It's Pride Month. Did you know that the IDF treats all of its soldiers equally? Let's see how many shares you can get for this photo."

The photo has drawn a lot of reaction.

The Huffington Post points out:

Israel was one of the first countries to abolish restrictions on openly gay soldiers serving in the military. In 1993 the country adopted a law that prohibits discrimination against gay forces, nearly 20 years ahead of the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in the United States. 

Yet despite the military's liberal policies, a 2011 study showed more than 40 percent of gay and lesbian soldiers in the IDF say they have been harassed because of their sexuality. According to Haaretz, 45 percent of respondents claimed homophobic remarks remained frequent, with soldiers in combat units reporting them more frequently.

More here.

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Psychiatrist says Facebook tough on troops. Dr. Valeh Karimkhani and I sit at a Starbucks discussing the dark side of Facebook, and our focus isn't the company's poor IPO showing.  Karimkhani is chief of psychiatry liaison services at Hoag Hospital and an Army reserve major who has served two tours of duty in Iraq. So when she speaks of issues like anxiety, depression, divorce and suicide – and how they can be connected to Facebook – it's with a voice of authority.  With people near us tapping on laptops and smartphones, Karimkhani allows there is much that is good about Facebook. Families instantly share news and photos, people connect with old friends and, yes, there's that social networking thing.  But for soldiers half a world away, reading about get-togethers they can't join or seeing photos of spouses dancing with strangers can be deeply wounding...
(OC Register)

British journalist says Syrian rebels set him up to die in no man’s land near Lebanese border. A British journalist claims Syrian rebels set him up to die in no man’s land near the Lebanese border, saying Friday he believes they wanted to use his death at the hands of government forces to score propaganda points.  Channel 4 News’s chief correspondent Alex Thomson said the incident happened Monday in the Syrian town of Qusair, about half an hour’s drive from the battered city of Homs.  In a blog post published to Channel 4’s website and in an email exchange with The Associated Press, Thomson said he, his driver, a translator, and two other journalists were trying to return to government lines when their rebel escort led them down what he described as a dead-end in the middle of a “free-fire zone.”
(The Washington Post)

Syrian blogger wins 2012 Front Line award for human rights defenders in Dublin. SYRIAN blogger and human rights activist Razan Ghazzawi has been announced as the winner of the 2012 Front Line award for human rights defenders at risk at a ceremony in Dublin.  Razan Ghazzawi is currently on trial before a military court charged with “possessing prohibited materials with the intent to disseminate them”. She and six other female activists were recently freed from detention.  They had been seized during a raid on the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression and held in the notorious Airforce Intelligence. Her colleague, and director of SCM, Mazen Darwish is currently being held in incommunicado detention with 4 other colleagues...
(Independent)

China looks to boost Internet limits on microblogs. China plans to stiffen restrictions on Internet service providers as it seeks even greater control over the opinions voiced on the country’s lively microblogs and other web forums.  A list of proposed changes to Beijing’s Internet law released by the Cabinet on Thursday includes blogs, Twitter-like microblogs and online forums.  In December, China began requiring real name registration for nearly all microblog services on a city by city basis, though compliance has been patchy...
(Daily Caller)

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Earlier this week, many people recognized the 68th anniversary of D-Day. 

One of those people was D-Day veteran Solomon Fein, who also happens to be the "world's oldest known military blogger" -- a title I gave him years back when I first covered his story and did online interviews here on Milblogging.com after reading about his story in The Republican-American.

Keeping up with current trends, he's shortened the title to just “OMB” now.

Solomon will turn 90 years old later this year and still enjoys blogging. 

His granddaughter even wrote me in January and said Solomon is proud and honored to have his stories read by so many people.

This week Solomon published two new stories on his blog Normandy D Day Vet.

On the D-Day anniversary June 6, 2012, he posted 1st Special Brigade Monument pictures from Utah Beach which includes photos of him.

He writes:

Oldest Military Blogger Posts some Pictures he promised....
It seems that, some promises are more difficult to keep.
Forgive the Quality, think of the effort.
Let me know what you think

On June 7, he published "OMB Old Soldiers Never Die".

If you haven't visited his blog, it's a rare glimpse at the life and military experiences of a D Day vet that offers vivid detail and pics.

You can find his blog at: sofine-normandyvet.blogspot.com

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Rolling Stone publishes emails from ‘America's last prisoner of war'. Rolling Stone published on Thursday a story—" America's Last Prisoner of War"—about Bowe Bergdahl, a 26-year-old U.S. soldier from Idaho captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2009.  The 8,000-plus word piece—written by Michael Hastings, whose " Runaway General" profile in 2010 led to the dismissal of U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal—includes excerpts of the last email Bergdahl sent to his parents before he was captured.  In the email, dated June 27, 2009, Bergdahl wrote that he had become disillusioned by the war, and was "ashamed" to be an American...
(ABC News)

And Lo, for on the 3rd day did Poe come down from the mountain and give the people documents that prove he was lying... Let’s start with this email which I have now been authorized to publicize. It is from Poe to the Defenders of Freedom. [As an aside, DoF is a phenomenal organization, and when this ends, I will be doing a fundraiser for them. Bear in mind that without all the BS story, Poe was entitled to be a part of their program. Dude was injured on Active Duty. They didn't do anything wrong. Poe's problem is not his service, it is with the stories he's been telling since....
(This Ain’t Hell)

Arlington cemetery app to help pinpoint grave sites. A smartphone app due out in the fall will tap into the power of GPS technology and help visitors navigate through the more than 250,000 graves at Arlington, providing military-grade accuracy.  "All we need is better 3G or 4G coverage in the cemetery, and it's coming," says Army Maj. Nicholas Miller, chief information officer at Arlington.  The idea may catch on: The Department of Veterans Affairs, which manages 131 national cemeteries, is considering a similar system, says Arlington spokeswoman Jennifer Lynch...
(USA Today)

Obama tweets for D-Day. President Obama on Wednesday sent a tweet noting that the country can never forget the heroism of the military service members involved in the victory known as D-Day. Obama's Twitter feed is handled by his campaign, but tweets signed "-bo" are sent personally by the president.  D-Day commemorates the Allied forces' invasion of Normandy in 1944, a decisive victory that marked the beginning of the end of World War II. In 2009, Obama delivered a 16-minute address in France marking the occasion...
(The Hill)

Email scam targets soldiers and military retirees in Maryland. The IRS and Maryland’s comptroller are warning of a new scam that targets military personnel and retirees as well as civilian workers.  The emails, which seem to come from the Defense Finance and Accounting Services, claim that recipients of disability compensation from the VA may be entitled to more money from the IRS. Not true.  The email, which has a “.mil” domain, instructs recipients to send copies of their income tax returns, 1099-Rs, Retiree Account Statements, VA award letter to a colonel in Florida, officials say...
(Baltimore Sun)

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Charlie Sherpa, the writer of the Red Bull Rising military blog, is leading a workshop on military blogs at the Military Experience and the Arts Symposium being held July 5-7, 2012, on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kent.

The event is designed to help veterans tell their story.

If you are a military blogger, Charlie Sherpa is looking for your feedback for the workshop, which is focusing on how veterans can document and share experiences through online tools such as blogs and social media.

Below is the workshop description:

Military-themed blogs, also known as “mil-blogs,” are unmediated presentations of experiences and opinions. Often, they are first-person narratives of military service-members, veterans, or family members. A mil-blog can be way to explore emotions and memories, document personal history, and/or establish connections with others who share similar interests.

A mil-blog can additionally serve as a platform through which to collect, collate, and even market one’s fiction, poetry, photography, and other artistic efforts. After learning mil-blogging terms, tools, and tactics—including how to optimize output by publishing across social media channels—participants will brainstorm how to generate a blog based on their respective backgrounds and interests.

Do you have any advice you would like to share with Charlie's workshop participants?

Things you would recommend as a blogger?

Traps to avoid?

Why even blog?

If you have some feedback you'd like to share, please email sherpa@redbullrising.com

Charlie will be sure to credit you and your website/blog in any resulting presentations and handouts.

Here are some links to previous milblogging lessons Charlie has discussed on his blog:

http://www.redbullrising.com/2012/04/mil-blogging-tips-and-tactics-part-i.html
http://www.redbullrising.com/2012/04/mil-blogging-tips-and-tactics-part-ii.html

For more information  on the Symposium and Workshops, please visit Red Bull Rising.

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American Homecomings: Telling war veterans’ stories. Yates is one of eight veterans telling their stories on   AmericanHomecomings.com    where you can find the stories of other veterans and how they are rebuilding their lives after the military, news, blogs, resources for veterans and a place to share your own story.  Those veterans featured on the website include area native Cpl. Granville “Grant” B. Cantrell III, and the moving story of his journey to his home in Glenmoore.  Cantrell was given a police escort, and applauded by supporters on his way through Chester County to his home for a 30-day leave. He is recovering from injuries suffered in September 2011 when he stepped on an IED. It was the first time home for the Purple Heart recipient...
(Daily Local)

ASU develops social networking site for veterans. Website developers at Arizona State University have created a new social networking website that helps veterans share their combat stories.  Eli Chmouni and other mechanical engineers are behind alphastripe.com.  "It's an online platform that allows anyone who has been in conflict -- especially the military, their family, friends and supporters, humanitarian aid groups or just civilians who were caught in conflict -- to record their stories and share their memories in video, photo, audio and text format," he said...
(KTAR)

Diary, Letters Help Cement Ties Between U.S., Vietnam. It sounds so clinical: Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Vietnamese Minister of Defense Phuong Quang Thanh “returned artifacts taken by service members from both nations during the Vietnam War.”The “artifacts” are a diary kept by Vietnamese soldier Vu Dinh Doan in 1966 and letters written by Army Sgt. Steve Flaherty in 1969. These are more than artifacts, they are voices from the grave, and they will now speak to the families of these fallen men.  Doan and Flaherty carried these items through the combat and heat and pain of the Vietnam War. They put their thoughts, feelings and experiences in these missives...
(Department of Defense)

Tunisian blogger on hunger strike to 'defend press freedom'. A Tunisian journalist said Tuesday he launched a hunger strike on May 28 to defend press freedom after military police seized the cameras he used to film the trial of ousted leader Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.  Ramzi Bettaieb, who works for Nawaat, a collective blog, said his cameras were confiscated on May 21 when he filmed the trial of Ben Ali and 22 co-accused in the northwestern town of Kef over their role in crushing anti-regime protests.  "I am on a hunger strike to defend press freedom, our sole gain in the revolution," the 36-year-old told AFP...
(AFP)

Azerbaijan frees Facebook activist before Clinton visit. Azerbaijan on Monday released a jailed activist who used Facebook to organise pro-democracy protests, in a move two days before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to visit Baku. Activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev was jailed for two years in May 2011 for evading military service after he used Facebook to call for support for an anti-government demonstration in energy-rich, ex-Soviet Azerbaijan.  "I am delighted to be released, but I repeat today that I do not agree with the charges on which I was arrested," Hajiyev told AFP after his early release...
(AFP)

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Longtime Milblogging member Kathi of Mail Call! Supporting the Troops dropped me a note to let me know that Anne of the military blog Kickin' through the sand, will once again be blogging from the frontlines.

In late March, Anne wrote:

Well, here we go again..... I had deleted my blog after I got home from the last deployment to Afghanistan truly thinking there would be no more. Luckily my old blog title "Kickin' through the Sand" was still available, so I revived it.  I chose this title because the one commonality with all my deployments has been my training of TaeKwonDo to keep me stress free and focused.  The funny thing is that at a time in my life where things were not going so well and my martial arts career was teetering on the brink of extinction, the tasker for this deployment came about....... in some ways, i believe this was meant to be..... who better to go back over there and do what i was best to do...... save lives and in the downtime also save my TaeKwonDo!!!! I look forward to keeping y'all posted on my progress..........

You can keep updated on her progress here.

Thanks again to Kathi for the tip.

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Back in April, I wrote about James Nathaniel Richards, winner of The Navy Child of the Year.  James writes a blog called “Nate the Great” which he started writing so his Dad and brothers could read all about his adventures while they are deployed.

Now Nate is back in the news and his blog is the focus of the story.

His father has served in the Navy since before Nate was born. Three of his big brothers are in the Navy or the Marine Corps. Last year, all four men were in combat zones, including the Middle East and Afghanistan, in the same period.

“They are on my mind all the time. When are they going to be home? Are they safe?” said Nate, who lives in the East County burg of Jamul. “It’s super-duper hard to have to worry about your dad and your brothers and them getting hurt.”

To help deal with the ache, he started keeping an online journal in January. He’ll sit at night on the family sofa or plop his 62-pound frame atop his mother’s bed and tap out blog posts on a laptop bigger than his lap.

Read the full story here.

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World War II re-enactors aim to preserve stories. The smoke of the cannon blasts rolled over the battlefield Saturday, its acrid smell filling the nostrils of the hundreds of spectators.  As the German army advanced, children cried out in dismay. The sound of gunfire, even without live ammunition, shook the ground.  At the end of the battle, the American camp was overrun, the soldiers killed or captured, but not really.  The World War II re-enactment taking place at Sommer Park is the largest central Illinois has seen since the event began four years ago...
(Journal Star)

WW1 diary displayed. A diary written by an Arbuthnott soldier from the trenches of the First World War will go on display in the Grassic Gibbon Centre this week.  Robert Walker, a farm labourer from Arbuthnott, was called up to war in August 1914 and never returned. His name is featured on the war memorial outside the Grassic Gibbon Centre and his medals and diary have been sourced from his daughter who now lives in England.  His notepad, fragilie and elegantly written in pencil, was kept from moment he left Aberdeen until his death. One of his first entries stated it took 21.5 hours to get from Aberdeen to Plymouth before being deported overseas...
(Mearns Leader)

Military To Breastfeeding Military Moms: Don't Nurse In Uniform AND Have Your Picture Taken.  Earlier this week, photographs of two military moms breastfeeding their children went viral. Washington state-based National Air Guard Members Terran Echegoyen McCabe (nursing her twin daughters) and Christina Luna wanted to show how they nurse in uniform for Mom2Mom's support group. Echegoyen McCabe explained, "I'm proud to be wearing a uniform while breastfeeding. I'm proud of the photo and I hope it encourages other women to know they can breastfeed whether they're active duty, guard or civilian." But the military is not pleased...
(Gotahmist)

Jill Biden writes children's book based on son's deployment. Her son has been home from Iraq for nearly three years now, but tears still well in Jill Biden's eyes when she recalls the Christmas Eve dinner the family had to have without him.  "We all would pretend that nothing was wrong," the wife of Vice President Biden says, sitting in the sunroom of their official residence. "But just looking down the table: There were 25 of us there, and just not seeing Beau. …"  That was one of the hardest moments during a difficult year when Beau Biden's Delaware National Guard unit was deployed to Camp Victory in Baghdad — difficult both for her and for his daughter, Natalie, then 4...
(USA Today)

Army general's blog post on suicides draws sharp rebuke from Joint Chiefs chairman. A blog post by an Army major general calling suicide a "selfish act" has drawn a sharp rebuke from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.  According to a Pentagon news release, Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard wrote the comments after attending a January memorial service for one of his soldiers who took his own life. He reportedly added that he was "personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess."  Dempsey told reporters Thursday that he disagreed "in the strongest possible terms" with Pittard's characterization of suicide.  "I've been in contact with Army senior leadership and know they share my concerns," Dempsey further stated...
(The Warner Robins Patriot)

From warfighter to app writer: Army sends soldiers back to school. As part of broader efforts to get mobile devices into the hands of troops, the Army has created a program designed to teach personnel how to write programs for commercial handhelds.  Launched in 2010, the Army Mobile Applications Branch began as part of the Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications (CSDA) program, which is testing a variety of commercial handheld devices for use by soldiers. When the CSDA was launched, it was thought that mobile applications were easy to write, based on the success of commercial ventures such as Apple’s App Store, said Lt. Col. Gregory Motes, chief of the Mobile Applications Branch at Fort Gordon, GA...
(DefenseSystems)

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The North County Times has a good story (via the Associated Press) on the website Together We Served, an online military network that enables veterans and active duty personnel to re-connect with lost brothers and sisters.

Although closed to non-members of the military community, the story discusses one of the site's latest initiatives that allows the public to access the previously-private profiles of more than 100,000 people who have died in modern American wars.

“Called the "Roll of Honor," the site uses public military records to create basic profiles of the fallen. Family members can contact site administrators to claim and customize the information about their loved one for free.”

In the article, Bernie and Anita Laguna discuss how the site has helped them. Anita's brother Raymond Bernal Jr., died while serving in the Army in 1966.

The Roll of Honor can be viewed online here.

Full story here.

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On Social Media, State Department Stands Alone. As other parts of the federal government begin to examine their own practices toward social media and publication review, the State Department stands alone in clinging to a 19th century model emphasizing lack of transparency and message control. That State seeks this modus in a largely unclassified world and while other agencies move toward change makes ripe State's policies for a judicial challenge.  The State Department's regulations also trail behind other government agencies, particularly the military. Military regulations concerning blogging and social media are not onerous and do not involve pre-clearance requirements...
(Huffington Post)

US military in row over Facebook breast-feeding picture. The Washington National Guard has criticised two servicewomen for being photographed in military uniform while breast-feeding their babies.  The photos were posted on the Facebook website by a support group at Fairchild Air Force Base called Mom2Mom. The group's leader, Trysta Chavez, said the photos were meant to promote World Breast-Feeding Week in August.  Military officials said it was a breach of the rules to use the uniform to promote non-military causes.  National Guard spokesman Captain Keith Kosik told the BBC that there was no regulation against breast-feeding in uniform...
(BBC)

Terror on Twitter.  JERUSALEM – One of the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world maintains an official Twitter account, which it has been using to spread propaganda against Israel while working, in its own words, to “evoke the spirit of Jihad.”  The Al Qassam Brigades, the so-called military wing of Hamas, sends out numerous English language updates on its Twitter account, @AlqassamBrigade, with most of the tweets linking to the terror group’s official English website...
(WND)

Shore Patrol: WWII-era submarines tell a story. The World War II National Submarine Memorial-West, at the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, is offering itself for a time of reflection.  Several hundred people attended a dignified ceremony this Memorial Day to remember the sacrifices of servicemen and women.  But plans are now being developed to improve the site, possibly with a museum and library, said Ed Barwick, memorial director.  The plans also include efforts to showcase the histories of the 52 submarines lost during World War II. Memorial Day's "tolling the boats" ceremony included only the name of each mourned submarine and the number of lost crew members...
(Press-Telegram)

Beware of Help-a-Vet Mail Scams. Sucker Lists: Memorial Day arrived Monday, followed on Tuesday by a fresh batch of help-a-vet scam letters in my friend Paul’s mailbox.  Paul (not his real name) is a Vietnam veteran, and even though he doesn’t have much to donate, by doing so, he’s gotten on every sucker list in the book.  I’ve checked some of these patriotic appeals and found that many range from outright rackets to those that collect millions but devote little to those who sacrificed so much. Yet the good-hearted Americans who write the checks have no idea that often most of the money goes to expensive fundraising outfits, and to those who draw fat $100,000-plus salaries operating scams with noble-sounding names...
(Independent)

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Twitter mentions of the U.S. Coast Guard spiked last week on news that three US Coast Guard personnel were shot at in Yemen.

According to reports, Yemeni officials first said the three were U.S. Coast Guard members, but the Coast Guard has since disputed that.

No surprise that the news spread quickly via social media sites.

The website OhMyGov! provided some social media analytics saying, "over 17,000 references to the branch were recorded on the social media site according to OhMyGov Analytics, following accounts by CBS and the Associated Press that at least one Coast Guard trainer was injured in Sunday's shooting near the Red Sea port city."

More here.

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Proud military wife defends her photograph of servicewomen breastfeeding in uniform after online attacks. A photograph of servicewomen breastfeeding in public while wearing uniform has ignited a global debate.  The picture shows two mothers, Terran Echegoyen-McCabe and Christina Luna, both in active service, nursing their babies on an Air Force base.  The striking image has seen a flurry of comments, from supporters who say breastfeeding is a 'fundamental right' to another who compared it to 'defecating in uniform'. The photos were taken for the Mom2Mom Breastfeeding Support Group, set up by a military wife and mother-of-three to raise awareness of all women's rights to breastfeed in public...
(Daily Mail)

JRTC homepage gets redesign, launch date scheduled for June 1. The change will be seamless for those wishing to access the homepage. NEC has been working for weeks with the Public Affairs Office to renovate the home page with an eye-catching redesign, reorganized links and up-to-date Army and Fort Polk news headlines.  The home page will feature a Facebook feed (the Fort Polk Guardian's Facebook page) that will allow PAO personnel to keep the community informed of inclement weather and other breaking news in a timely manner -- and as it happens...
(Leesville Daily Leader)

Fort Bliss launches new Facebook page. Fort Bliss families looking to connect with U.S. Army officials now have another way to get their questions answered.  “Tell It To Col D” is a new Facebook Page launched Wednesday to help families learn more about post...
(KFOX14)

Boy, 9, gives away Disney World trip to family of fallen soldier. Brendan Haas earned a prize any young kid would appreciate — an all-expenses paid trip to Disney World. Instead of going, though, the Massachusetts boy gave the vacation to the family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan.  Haas earned the trip through a trading contest on Facebook he set up to help out a military family. He got the idea from the story of a man who traded up from a red paper clip to a house.  In February, Brendan and his mother Melissa set up the "Soldier for a Soldier" Facebook page in an attempt to trade up from a toy soldier to a Disney trip...
(MSNBC)

WW2 tree carvings and bark grafitti unveil private lives from the past. Chantel Summerfield, 24, is studying the inscriptions engraved into tree trunks by troops during the two World Wars as part of her archaeology PhD.  Often using just a name, initials or date, she traces the military and family history of the soldiers involved to re-create fascinating wartime stories...
(Telegraph)

Hunger Strike of Tunisian Blogger Trigger Wave of Support. Today, the hunger strike of Tunisian blogger and activist Ramzi Bettaib entered its third day. Bettaib has refused food in protest of the confiscation of two of his cameras while reporting on the Thala and Kasserine Martyr’s Trial at the military tribunal in Kef on May 21, 2012.Ramzi conducted a hunger strike once before in 2005, and was imprisoned during the Ben Ali era because he refused to acquiesce to internet censorship restrictions over his cyber shop in Kram...
(tunisialive)

Pakistan to Twitter: 'Yes We Ban!' My friend in Pakistan was unable to tweet this quote on May 20: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and conveniences, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Yes, it was more than 140 characters, but the bigger reason was Pakistan's ban on Twitter...
(Huffington Post)

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