(Telegraph) In a ground-breaking departure for newspapers, The Sunday Telegraph has "embedded" a video camera with a front-line infantry regiment in southern Afghanistan.
Readers will be given a soldier's eye view of life in Helmand, where 8,000 British troops are locked in an increasingly bitter conflict against the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.
The Sunday Telegraph will receive regular video dispatches from Corporal Billy Carnegie, a section commander with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the 5th battalion of The Scottish Regiment (5 Scots), which will appear on the Telegraph website on a regular basis.
Read the entire story here.
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Smedley "The Camel Spider" is still living with us in our tent. I took it upon myself to do some scientific research so I went on over to Wikipedia and read more about camel spiders. Here's what Wikipedia says:
"In the Middle East, it is widely rumored among American and coalition military forces stationed there that Solifugae will feed on living human flesh. The story goes that the creature will inject some anaesthetizing venom into the exposed skin of its sleeping victim, then feed voraciously, leaving the victim to awaken with a gaping wound. Solifugae, however, do not produce such an anaesthetic, and they do not attack prey larger than themselves unless threatened. Other stories include tales of them leaping into the air, disemboweling camels, screaming, and running alongside moving humvees; all of these tales are dubious at best. Due to their bizarre appearance many people are startled or even afraid of them. The greatest threat they pose to humans, however, is their bite in self-defense when one tries to handle them. There is no chance of death directly caused by the bite, but, due to the strong muscles of their chelicerae, they can produce a proportionately large, ragged wound that is prone to infection."
I was a non-believer, until the other day. So I was packing my belongings and a spider ran out from underneath my duffel bag. I hit it with my boot several times and I'm not sure if he got away. Well, later that night while I was talking to one of my battle buddies --- and in the corner of my eye --- I swear Smedley was staring straight at me with those little beady angry eyes. Like he wanted to eat my flesh or something.
Smedley Update1: Turns out, Smedley escaped from his cage. He's small, just over an inch so it wasn't too hard. Not that I'm scared, but I now sleep with my eyes open. And all my body armor. And my M-4. Hell, I'm not ashamed, I even clutch a Woobie.
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(Pier System) Since January, the Thirteenth District Public Affairs Office has been maintaining a blog and podcast as an additional way to tell the Coast Guard story. In the interest of transparency and to enhance our ability to tell the Coast Guard's story we are looking for motivated Coast Guard members, active duty, reserve, auxiliary and civilians, who would be interested in blogging about their Coast Guard experiences. Blogs can be written about almost anything that you are doing in the Coast Guard. Remember that this is an official blog so keep it to the Coast Guard and stay in your lane. Talk about your experiences, cases you've been involved in, boating safety, important topics, training, etc..
Read the entire story here.
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(The Patchwork Quilt II) Being a blogger, more so than being a member of Soldiers Angels, is what led me to meet the Founder of Soldiers Angels,Patti,when I attended the Milblog conference last year in DC. And also meeting Robert Stokely and briefly speaking with him, one of the most towering men of Christian faith I've ever had the privilege to meet. Over a year later, the brief conversation we had while in the lunch line still resounds within me, and, now that my husband/'s son is deployed, brings me a great deal of comfort and peace.
Read the entire story here.
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(Milblogs) The second annual
GI Film Festival will take place in Washington, DC from May 14-18. In addition to film screenings and other fun happenings, the festival will present a series of panel discussions.The festival has added a panel on milblogging to this year's agenda.
Read the entire post here.
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Smedley is a camel spider that we caught while cleaning our weapons after a mission. He lives in our tent in a tiny terrarium Ranger Nievera bought him. Smedley is pretty much the cutest thing on the planet. Just look at those beady little eyes. And his legs? Not 1, not 2, not even 6 or 7, but 8 of the most adorable little furry legs you've ever seen. We're considering entering him into the "World's Cutest Pet" contest. I'll keep you updated on his story.
Smedley Update1: Apparently, people keep telling us Smedley isn't all that adorable. They say there's no way he could win any "Cutest Pet Contest". Puh-leeeassse. Once we dress up Smedley in a baby diaper and pacifier, I guarantee a win. We might even have him drive a little red fire engine. Oh, I smell victory.
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In case you missed Bad Voodoo's War (the personal story of my Platoon), you can watch it online. If you did watch the show and want to share your thoughts, please feel free to share in the Comments section below.
Oh, and yes folks, that's me at the top of the PBS website raising one eyebrow like James Bond. I mean, you can't look like me and not raise one eyebrow during photographs. It's unnatural. Shoot, it was hard enough to resist ripping off my shirt and flexing my pecs and back for the camera.
The New York Times -- Neil Genzlinger
"… this is a very different view of the war than you'll see on the nightly news. …
"The platoon draws the seemingly mundane duty of escorting trucks all around the country, but in this roadside-bomb-based war, of course, it's not mundane at all. [Director Deborah] Scranton, aided by creepy nighttime video, builds the tension effectively toward the inevitable explosion, pausing along the way to fill in the back stories of a few of the soldiers. …"
The Wall Street Journal -- Nancy deWolf Smith
"… What kind of person can face months of such danger, day in and day out? Only the brave, undoubtedly. Beyond that, it is difficult to say much more specific about the men of Bad Voodoo Platoon. Of its 30-something members, only two have been chosen to speak at length here. What they have to say is disturbing on many levels. …"
United Features Syndicate -- Kevin McDonough
"… moving …
"You can't help but be touched by the dedication of these men to their country and to each other. …"
The Star-Ledger -- Alan Sepinwall
"… while admiring the complexity and achievement of [last week's 4.5-hour series] 'Bush's War,' I couldn't help but be more affected by 'Bad Voodoo's War.' Admittedly that's just the nature of the two films -- one a clinical dissection of foreign policy and inter-agency turf battles, the other an intimate, first-person look at only a handful of soldiers -- but if forced to choose one or the other as the proper fifth anniversary commemoration, I'd likely pick the latter…"
The Hartford Courant -- Roger Catlin
"Should be mandatory, albeit not easy, watching. ...
"If last week's massive summary brought us up to date on the history of the Iraq engagement, this week's episode … puts us vividly and uncomfortably in the present. …"
Contra Costa Times -- Susan Young
"… Unlike a journalist embedded with the troops, the camera makes no judgment; no color commentary spews from its lens. Just hard reality that viewers can filter through their own eyes. …"
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"… compelling television …"
The Cincinnati Enquirer
"… these guys make ideal subjects, combining strength and humanity. …"
The Huffington Post -- Leslie Griffith
"… the mother lode of all reality shows …
"Director Deborah Scranton (The War Tapes) uses her brilliant 'subject as reporter' theme to tell Bad Voodoo's War. With very few 'embeds' (journalists reporting from Iraq), Scranton jars us into the reality of war by forcing us to see through the eyes of the soldiers. …" [Read
Blackfive.net
"… The reason I like Scranton's work is that the soldiers tell their own stories - the good, the bad and the ugly - and you get plenty of that in the interviews. Yes, some just want to go home, others want to do the job they've been giving, and others worry about the (lack of) ability for Iraq to provide it's own security. …" [Read more…]
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My youngest son Joseph turned 2-years old today. It's the second birthday I've missed because of my deployment. But it's ok. My wife has been great about sending me photos and videos of him so I don't feel far away. He's a real cute kid. But are you thinking what I'm thinking? He's not even human, right? It feels like every time I see a photo or video of him, it's like I'm watching some Saturday morning cartoon. I, for one, am convinced he's a Care Bear. I'm pretty sure he's just made of fabric and stuffing.
He even comes fitted with a sound box that says lines like, "Poo-poo" and "Woof woof".
But honestly, I don't know how well this Care Bear product line did though for Marketing, because my wife still claims to find brown stuff in his diaper at least 5 or 6 times a day. Some times 7. Oh, and one time he just stood up, grabbed a box of Crayons and started drawing all over the wall. I swear, it said nothing of the sort on the box when we bought him.
Happy Birthday Joseph!
Feel free to browse through some of my previous entries on him:
How my kids cheer me up during deployment
Check Out The Milblogging.com Store!
My kids enjoying their Halloween treats from a reader
My 1 year old son, having a good hair day
My 1-year old son using his manners
My 1 year old doing Karaoke back in the States
My 1 year old rocking to iPod music - Part 2
My 1 year old rocking to iPod music back home
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Here's one of the latest and greatest music videos to come out of Iraq. It was featured in a Jacksonville paper. It's pretty rad. By the way, my own music video is near completion. Right now I'm just shopping it around looking for a record label. It involves me, a unicorn, Guitar Hero II, and the occassional hand-to-hand combat scene with ninjas.
I think my video has some serious potential.
Here's an excerpt from the story:
(Jacksonville.com) Mark Middlebrook, 23, of Ponte Vedra Beach returned with his platoon, 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne, from Baghdad in November after 15 months in Iraq stretched over 2 deployments. While there, the platoon made this fun music video, Baghdaddy Beat. Mark is a 2003 graduate of Nease High School.
Read the entire story here.
Click here to visit Mark's Milblog.
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Registration will be available in a couple more weeks.
See the schedule, location, and date/time for the conference here.
Like I said, just some real quick items because the whole "mission" thing here in Iraq really cuts into my personal time.
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My wife took this picture back home of my 1-year old doodling on our perfectly good family room wall. These types of pictures always cheer me up on deployment. If you haven't seen his artwork before, my son is quite talented. I mean, just look at that masterpiece. I'm still sitting here at the computer in awe.
It's so rich in color and texture. There's a level of passion one can't even begin to describe in words. The jagged lines and even the irregularities of the bagel-shaped circles further underline his sense of anger.
Artist Update1: My wife told me by email he got pretty upset when she interrupted him. By the look on his face, no amount of Oreo cookies or ice cream cones will get rid of this level of rage.
Artist Update2: Based on what I can see in his latest piece, I believe the message he is trying to convey is his frustration with the moral decay of urban America. My wife on the other hand, however, says he just started scribbling on the wall after she told him it was "nappy time". Puh-leeassssse.
Artist Update3: This masterpiece has now been named "Nap Time". Arguably my 1-year old's best known work --- inspired by his outrage at having to take a nap in the middle of the day.
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(
Cheese's Milblog) Well, it's been some time since I last posted, but I didn't have access to internet at Fort Bragg and I actually just got my blog registered through the Public Affairs Office. It was actually a pretty painless process, but we'll see if they try to hassle me now that I'm posting again.Read the entire story here.
More about the author
I'm a student and infantry soldier from the Binghamton, New York area. I'm definitely new to this blogging thing, but I'm hoping to capture and share the experience of my second combat deployment.
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Jami: I had been in the National Guard for 5 years before I was deployed to Iraq in 2005. I never thought about blogging until my deployment to the Middle East. I think I started maintaining a blog mostly to keep in touch with everyone back home. I knew they would be worrying about how I was or what I was doing. Even though I wasn’t able to update my blog during that deployment as much as I do today, I think it still helped people understand what was going on with me and with the war in Iraq.
Part of me also maintained the blog to help document the experience. Today I’m so glad that I did! Memories tend to fade and distort with time. It’s my own personal time capsule.
Read more here.
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This is a picture of Flat Stanley flying home on a helicopter. I took this photo about a week ago shortly after the ugly breakup between Pixelated Patty and Flat Stanley. The person in the photo is my Squad Leader Ranger Nievera saying his Goodbye (those two really became good friends). Flat Stanley wanted to fly home on a C-130 but I'll be damned if I'm caught holding up a piece of paper colored in Crayola next to a large aircraft. So this was the best we could arrange for his flight home.
Now that Pixelated Patty and Flat Stanley are gone, things have been pretty boring around here in the tents. I've packed up most of my personal belongings (including all my family photos accidentally) to ship home as we to prepare to finish our mission. I got so lonely the other day I drew a picture of my wife and two boys on an index card with crayon. I think it looks pretty damn sweet. If you ask me, it's always a good idea to carry a wallet-size photo of your family on mission. Now, any time things get tough while I'm on the road in Iraq, I just open up my wallet and look at their photo and see the close resemblance.
Well, sorta...
I mean, my 1-year and 7-year olds came out pretty close. They're basically two circles with sticks popping out their sides. And both of their left eyes are tiny circles and colored 'yellow'. Their right eyes are about 8 times the size of their left ones and purple (hey, brown Crayola is tough to come by). But it's my wife who looks truly beautiful. Her legs and arms are thin long sticks that stick out of a bottom cirlce that's shaped like a bagel. And her head is the sexiest little rectangle you've ever seen.
God, I miss my little Crayola family (tear drop).
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(A Soldier's Perspective) I learned an important lesson on April 1st - People are gullible!! I also learned that you can draw a lot of attention by saying the right (or wrong) thing on a military blog. Not long ago the military tried to crack down on military bloggers with new and improved regulations (we didn't take it lying down!). In an effort to prevent drawing unwanted attention by Big Brother, I humbly offer some rules to those military bloggers concerned about crossing the line (and how to avoid it).
1. Violate Army and related regulations. Get to know them. Know your left and right limits. Once you know them, you can get as close to that line as you want, but do not EVER cross it. Knowing the rules keeps you out of trouble. It's just not as fun!
2. Avoid embarassing photos or videos. If it's going to bring discredit on the military or may be illegal or unethical, report it to the chain of command. Don't blog about it. Let them decide if it needs to be released. Our job is hard enough without us making it harder. This goes along with Rule #1 of the "You Served" rules.
3. Verbally slay your Chain of Command. A sure way to get the microscope focused on you is to embarrass or belittle your chain of command. For one, it's against regulations. If you're a senior enlisted NCO, it's a myth that "only an act of Congress can take your rank." Don't go there. Focus on the issue you're pissed about, not the individual.
4. Ignore your wife to write that one extra post. There's a reason she's been lying next to you in lace for the past hour. If that doesn't distract you, maybe the government needs to relook your security clearance and/or next promotion!.
Read the story and see the entire list here.
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Many soldiers have agreed to share their experiences and thoughts with News online readers, and several have already begun writing. Go to the Voices from the War blog to join in the conversation.
Read the entire story here.
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Read the entire story here.
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Read the entire story here.
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I'm sure most of you read the story about “Flat Stanley” paying me a visit. And we even ran a few Convoy Security missions together in Iraq. Well, “Flat Stanley” is on his way back home to the United States, which is good and bad. Good because I don't have to put up with his pranks anymore, and bad because he left a little lady behind. Her name: Pixelated Patty.
The two of them spent their last days together checking out the magazine section at the PX, getting suntans, and I even drew them a candlelight dinner on their last night. Unfortunately, everything was going well between “Flat Stanley” and “Pixelated Patty” until I got bored and started doodling stuff all over the paper. It started out innocent enough with me drawing a front door, a Sun with a smiley face, and a tiny little dog called “Mr. Biggles”.
But the next thing I know, I was drawing Flat Stanley's "make believe" jealous girlfriend coming home early from Step class. God knows I didn't mean it, but you can imagine how it ended. I tried my best to apologize, and I kept telling “Flat Stanley” it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Or something along those lines.
He told me to go to hell.
Note: Thanks to Melissa and her youngest for introducing Pixelated Patty to Flat Stanley.
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