Leading General Tells Troops to Start Blogging
By Noah Shachtman

Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who heads the Combined Arms Center [CAC] and Ft. Leavenworth, told his soldiers in a recent memo that “faculty and students will begin blogging as part of their curriculum and writing requirements both within the .mil and public environments. In addition CAC subordinate organizations will begin to engage in the blogosphere in an effort to communicate the myriad of activities that CAC is accomplishing and help assist telling the Army’s story to a wide and diverse audience.”

Lt. Gen. Caldwell, the former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, is a blogger himself, contributing to Small Wars Journal. He made waves in January when he wrote that “we must encourage our Soldiers to… get onto blogs and to send their YouTube videos to their friends and family.”

It’s a position that appears to run counter to stated Pentagon policy. YouTube is officially banned on military networks. Personal blogs cannot be maintained during duty hours. Many influential blogs are blocked. Stringent regulations, read literally, require commanding officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online. And in televised commercials, screen savers, and flyers, troops are told that blogging is a major security risk — even though official sites have proven to leak many, many more secrets.

-It’s about time somebody saw reason. With people like Bob ‘Confederate Wankee’ Owens releasing photos of the effects of EFP’s (explosively formed penetrators) on our troops vehicles (in an attempt to, what, help insurgents plan better next time?), how much worse could the blogging of a soldier who’s life is on the line everyday be? Who would understand better?

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