Originally published October 9 2005
Soldier shares first-hand war experience in "milblogs" online
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Attracting attention from publishers and security experts, many soldiers in combat are now blogging about their experiences, CJR.org reports.
With few exceptions, the coverage coming out of Iraq today doesn't portray the grunts in the same deeply personal light.
It is a different era, and most journalists have never served in the military and have only a passing acquaintance with the worlds that most soldiers come from.
Some are sophomoric and laced with obscenities, while others offer frank and poignant accounts of what it's like to fight this war.
Their popularity has drawn the interest of book publishers, along with the scrutiny of military higher-ups concerned that milblogs could breach operational security.
For the Pentagon there is also something else at play here: how to manage the flow of information from the field --- especially when the military's official version of events is contradicted by blogging soldiers.
The battle received scant media attention, and the Pentagon played down the extent to which Buzzell's brigade had even been involved in the fighting --- crediting Iraqi security forces with the victory.
Days later, though, a report in the Tacoma, Washington, News Tribune, which covers Buzzell's Fort Lewis-based detachment, noted the discrepancy between Buzzell's version and the Pentagon's.
This drew attention to Buzzell's blog, and soon his officers learned his identity.
Buzzell was later briefly confined to base, an experience he details in his forthcoming book, My War: Killing Time in Iraq, due out in October.
"Hey pencil pusher reading this, ready to censor/censure me, go on patrol, you Fobbit!"
("Fobbit" is military-speak for soldiers who spend most of their time on base.)
Some of the most powerful accounts come from bloggers who have recently returned from Iraq, such as those posted by the Army reporter/photographer Fred Minnick (one of his photos is above), who was stationed in Mosul and blogs under the name Sminklemeyer (In Iraq for 365).
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