Want to Blog? Hooyah!

I have not had the honor of serving my country in the armed services and I have not been deployed in territory before where I am far from my family and loved ones so I can't begin to imagine they loneliness or frustration that may come to our soldiers as they are serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I have always had a deep respect and appreciation of the men and women in the military and being a history buff I have read up a lot on military history. I think that's one subject that most men agree on and at least makes us seem studious in the eyes of others. Perhaps it's the hidden testosterone kick that we feign receiving when we read about it, but in any case, it's led to my appreciating the sacrifices and commitments they make to the country and themselves.

Being away from home can be hard though the state of technology in the world has improved allowing for communications via wireless methods. The use of the internet for e-mail and webcam transmissions has allowed for better communications between soldiers and their families back home. Gone are the days where a soldier would write out a letter and hope that it reaches their family sometime soon. These days most can access the internet from almost anywhere they are deployed and type off a short note and expect to get one back fairly quickly. This betterment of technology has also led to an increase in the different ways that soldiers can relate their experiences to their families and others. Sites like Blogger and such have allowed soldiers to set up their pages and express their emotions and ideas for the world to see.

A search for military blogs yields numerous results and there are so many sites from soldiers in different areas that you can get a true sense of what is happening in their particular area of deployment. I remember reading the posts of one particular soldier who tried to blog for almost the full year that he was deployed in Iraq. He wrote about his feelings on being in combat for the first time, seeing Iraq for the first time, meeting the people, losing his friends in combat and so many other experiences that it gave a better picture of what they go through over there. No matter how embedded a reporter may be, they'll never be as true to someone's feelings as that person themself is. The soldier mentioned how when he read some of his posts later, he realized that he was using the post as a way of letting out the emotions that were building up inside him.

Most posts, like anything a soldier attempts to send out to someone outside the direct military is privy to review by commanding officers or censors. The reason for this being that in order to maintain good operational security, the letters or posts are screened to ensure that no sensitive data is inadvertently released. It may be safe to tell your mother that you are going on a raid in two days but if the e-mail is intercepted and used, then it could lead to disasterous results, hence the desire to censor the output by all soldiers. In general, there had been a lot of leeway in terms of what was and wasn't allowed for posting but now, the US Army has declared that they are going to be cracking down on military bloggers.

What some people have called 'the most effective PR tool for the war' is now in danger of being closed down. Apparently greater scrutiny will be applied to what soldiers post and if it doesn't meet certain guidelines then it will not be allowed. There is already a bit of backlash against this; and although there had already been a requirement for commanding or senior officers and censors to screen any mails and blog posts, there is less freedom given to the soldiers to blog on their experiences. Whether you believe the war is right or wrong, denying these soldiers the chance to get their feelings off of their chests is a potentially dangerous situation. It's true that these posts are freely available to anyone with internet access but I don't believe that soldiers will blatantly reveal classified mission information on the web. Especially not when it's their lives they are jeopardizing by putting the information out there.

I agree that there should be more security or screening on operational details or information on the specifics of what units are deployed where or even what their mission is. But for soldiers not to be able to post their frustration at losing a friend, of being under equipped, or being hot and sweaty in the streets of Iraq is almost akin to wanting robot soldiers. For me there has always been something theraputic about writing and I'm sure that the case holds for most soldiers who post blogs on the internet. Maintain security but also maintain the freedoms that these men and women in uniform are fighting so hard to protect and provide around the world.