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Soldier blogs detail life in Iraq

Sep-25-2004 » Filed Under: General Military

You might recognize a site or two mentioned in this article.

[Link to Full Article]
By Ellen Simon, AP Business Writer

Iraq war blogs are as varied as the soldiers who write them. Some sites feature practical news, war pictures and advice. Some are overtly political, with more slanting to the right than to the left. Some question the war, some cheer it. While some military bloggers (or milbloggers) say their commanders have encouraged their online literary ventures, a few say their commanders have shut them down.

For the folks back home, soldier blogs offer details of war that don't make it into most news dispatches: The smell of rotten milk lingering in a poor neighborhood. The shepherd boys standing at the foot of a guard tower yelling requests for toothbrushes and sweets. The giant camel spiders. The tedium of long walks to get anything from a shower to a meal. A burning oil refinery a hundred miles away blocking the sun. A terrifying night raid surprised by armed enemies dressed in black.

Spc. Colby Buzzell and a handful of others write unvarnished war reporting. But many of these blogs have been shut down.

Buzzell's squad was on a mission in a poor neighborhood in Mosul when two Iraqi boys ran up carrying old artillery shells. "Give me a dollar!" they said.

Another came carrying bullets and demanding money.

"Then, all of a sudden, this really skinny Iraqi kid comes running up to us with a f---- HAND GRENADE in his hand," Buzzell wrote on his war blog. " 'Drop the f---- hand grenade! Drop it now!' We all started yelling. The little kid, still with this proud smile on his face that said, 'Look what I just found' just dropped the grenade on the ground, and walked over to my squad leader and said, 'Give me money!'"

The grenade didn't go off. [...]

The Pentagon has "no specific guidelines on blogging per se," said Cheryl Irwin, a Defense Department spokeswoman. "Generally, they can do it if they are writing their blogs not on government time and not on a government computer. They have every right under the First Amendment to say any darn thing they want to say unless they reveal classified information, and then it becomes an issue as a security violation."

Military bloggers say they're careful not to reveal any information that would be useful to enemies. "Nowhere does either blog say where I was or give out full names of anybody but myself," Dustman said.

One military blogger speculated on his site that the Army would eventually develop a liberal policy on blogging and other instant communication.

"The Internet is such a wonderful tool to keep soldiers connected with their friends and family and has a huge morale impact that prohibiting access would create a huge outcry," wrote Eric Magnell, a lawyer whose blog, http://www.daggerjag.blogspot.com, chronicles his work with the Army as it tries to build a legal system in Iraq. "The Army isn't a sinister organization looking to trample individual freedoms, but, as any large bureaucracy, it can be slow to react to new situations and changes in the environment."

Said Dustman, "Most people do have their minds made up about the war, but bloggers let them know that we're human too, just like them. We're the best way for the public to take a pulse on how we're handing the situation."

It's worth reading in full.


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