On October 28th 2009, Dena Yllescas recalled the day she learned her husband Captain Robert Yllescas was seriously injured in Afghanistan in 2008. Dena had started the blog shortly after he was injured to share the story of his fight to live, but sadly Captain Yllescas lost the fight and succumbed to his serious injuries. Over the last year, Dena has kept up her blog, writing about her children and sharing personal stories and memories. In her most recent post, Dena shares the journey she has taken since learning of her husband’s injuries:
There was a purpose he gave Rob to me for the short amount of time he did. Although I may never know the complete reason, I have figured out a few things. Before I met Rob, there is no way I could have handled a situation like this the way I have. He taught me how to live independently and gave me the confidence in living life without him through his 3 deployments. He taught me to “suck it up and drive on”. He showed me that through hard work and determination, anything was possible. He made an impression on everyone he crossed paths with. He would fill a room up with his presence. And to this day, I still feel his presence. I have no doubt he is up in heaven, guiding me.
To read the entire post, please visit The Yllescas Family blog.
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(The Australian) Here he writes home from London after being evacuated seriously ill
Wandsworth London SW
August 30, 1915
Dearest Mother
You will be getting anxious about me I am sure and you will also be surprised no doubt to see my new address. I hardly in my wildest dreams a short while ago, ever thought that so soon I should be in England -- and in London.
But I suppose you would sooner hear my story in proper sequence, then. To begin you saw in the papers of the new landing at Suvla Bay on August 7 -- my! it was awful -- everything else was a picnic to it. Even the first day in April last.
The shells we poured into them and the shells they poured into us made such a deafening row that it's a marvel the fallen in their graves did not rise. There were awful scenes -- piles of dead, streams of wounded -- groans incessant -- dead Indians -- dead mules -- dead Turks and visions of men dodging hither and thither, or scuttling for their lives along the gullys and valleys to escape the tornado of shot and shell. And what they failed to get with their artillery, they tried to get with a couple of German aeroplanes which flew and circled over us dropping heavy bombs and steel darts.
Read the entire story here.
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The military continues to launch new blogs and connect on more social media sites. From the Army.mil website:
The Army is launching a new blog to help Soldiers and the public discover a little-known side of the Army: the research, development, engineering, testing and evaluation that goes into the technologies that make Soldiers safer and more effective.
The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command will launch Army Technology Live Nov. 2. It will join the growing family of Army blogs hosted by the Department of Defense's DODLive blog hosting service. The Web address will be armytechnology.armylive.dodlive.mil
RDECOM and its eight subordinate elements create a wide range of technologies used by Soldiers every day, and it's but one of a number of Army organizations that focus on technology, according to RDECOM Public Affairs Officer Robert DiMichele.
Is anyone else seeing a trend here? Seriously, the social media policy by the Pentagon hasn’t been made public, but the Army and other services continue to get connected. This (and the 4,563 other Official DoD Blogs/Social Media sites) is probably the BIGGEST clue to the Public that the Pentagon is going to fully support social media (without actually saying it).
Perhaps the Pentagon will offer more clues about their seemingly undecided stance on social media, by hosting a Tweetup. Or maybe by writing Official press releases using hashtags. Under 140 characters.
Read the entire story here.
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(The Daily Mail) With shells screaming overhead and German snipers only 75 yards away, just staying alive was a remarkable achievement.
Yet huddled in the mud-filled trenches, Sapper John T French found the time to compile a remarkable diary.
Its pencil-written pages, in immaculate copperplate, give an astonishing insight into life on the front line between 1915 and 1917.
Read the entire story here.
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It’s not really blog related, but photos tell stories too and I found an awesome list of National Guard photographers while surfing the net which led me to Afghanistan Today: A Photo Essay by U.S. Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika. The photos are truly amazing.
As an added bonus, turn up the volume on your computer while you flip through the Photo Essay.
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(Combined Arms Center) The workshop, held in January 2008, brought together experts from the Department of Defense, Department of State, Intelligence Community and academia.
According to the USAWC DIME Web site, this report is a synthesis of workshop discussions in terms of key takeaways addressing what is required to "win" in today's operational environment, where cyberspace and new media capabilities are significant components of the battlespace.
You can download the report here.
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Those security risks continue to be the subject of considerable debate within the Defense Department, but the U.S. Army nevertheless is seeing important benefits in using social-media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Arata said.
Read the entire story here.
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It was the first time I felt whole since I’d woken up wounded in Landstuhl.
–Major Charles "Chuck" Ziegenfuss, on using a voice-controlled laptop.
Learn everything you need to know about Project Valour-IT from the history to joining a Team, to Sponsoring and more, by clicking here.
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Inside Bay Area has an update on the Berkley blogger, Jane Stillwater, who filed a lawsuit against the DoD after her embed with the U.S. Army was cancelled.
Berkeley blogger Jane Stillwater has settled a lawsuit against the federal government for $1,362, the cost of an airplane ticket to Kuwait and the price of 15 mocha lattes at the airport Starbucks, where she spent two sleepless days because her previously approved embed with the Army suddenly was canceled.
"They claim they bought me off, but still it's kind of a win for me," Stillwater said. "I thought they'd fight this to the absolute bitter end.”
The government clearly doesn't see it her way.
I wrote about this story back in January when Jane made news. And I’ll be honest, I don’t see it her way either. According to her own website, her "goal in life for now is to send George Bush to jail". That’s up to you to have goals like that, but most people have goals like: to be happy, raise a family, be financially secure.
I mean, if you look close enough at her computer screen in the picture above, you might be able to make out the rest of her goals in life... *Squinting eyes* I think it says: # 2 Goal: To Make a Complete Jerk of Myself.
Check.
Read the entire story here.
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I missed this year’s Blog World Expo, but found a great story by Digital Podcast which highlights the Army’s progress in social media. With blogging in particular, the Army has been making strides. It always makes me a little teary eyed when I read about the Military getting more connected. Digital Podcast reports:
The star of the Army’s social media efforts on display at BlogWorld was ArmyStrongStories.com, a blogging system that lets anyone in the Army post to the blog. It can be used to help recruits see what it’s like from firsthand accounts by people like themselves and to bring the soldiers’ voice to life for all of us.
You can check out the Army Strong Stories site and see if it’s for you. The site already features dozens of bloggers with fresh posts on a daily basis ranging from enlisted to Officers and all sorts of different jobs in the Military. So head over to the site and give it a go, especially if you’re thinking of giving blogging a shot. According to the About page:
ArmyStrongStories.com (www.ArmyStrongStories.com) is an innovative U.S. Army Accessions Command program that provides the opportunity for Soldiers – every rank, every MOS, every background – to share their unfiltered perspective on daily life in the military through blog entries, photos and video. Everyone is invited to join the conversation by leaving a comment and sharing compelling posts with others. If you are a Soldier and interested in blogging on Army Strong Stories, Sign up.
Of course, I have to wonder if you can really post “unfiltered” stories on the site. After all, it is an official Army site. And it has to stay in line with OPSEC regulations. Which leads me to the question are stories about Oral Pathology and Car Shows really unfiltered stories? Now I’m not saying pictures and stories about “root canals” aren’t the most exciting and riveting thing, but when I think of unfiltered stories I imagine something a little different. That said, the newest story titled Clinic Update and Oral Pathology has some pretty graphic pictures of what MAJOR Kendall Mower sees on a regular basis.
I’ll be sleeping with the night light on tonight.
Read the entire Digital Podcast story here, and check out the Army’s latest innovation over at ArmyStrongStories.com.
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(Camarillo Acorn) The Web log features photographs, videos and posts from a country many Americans still know very little about.
The blog has attracted loyal followers—many of them soldiers who are headed to the base and grateful for a glimpse into their future—and has garnered the attention of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper, who calls Nomi’s blog “fascinating.”
“His blog helped a lot,” said Ray Calef, a sergeant first class from Iowa who will deploy next year to Balad. “I think it gives an informative view of what life on (the base) is like, and I have filled my wife in about it. It helps her to understand what life will be like for me when we deploy.”
Nomi, a graduate of Rio Mesa High School and a Camarillo attorney, returned last month from Iraq, where he provided legal services to soldiers dealing with personal issues back home.
Since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq two years later, tech-savvy soldiers like Nomi have taken advantage of digital photos, video and the ubiquity of the Internet to offer a personal look inside the trenches and command centers of a 21stcentury battlefield.
For Nomi, like many who post their daily activities online, the blog was also an easy way to correspond with friends and family interested in what’s happening overseas.
Read the entire story here. And to visit Brian Nomi’s blog, go here.
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(The Morning Sun) Stories for young, old and all ages in-between will come alive Friday and Saturday via the spoken word, music, dance and visual arts at the annual event on the campus of Central Michigan University.
There's no admission charge for the majority of activities and presentations planned for Saturday. Many of them feature "child-friendly" performances and hands-on workshops.
"One of the stories I most likely will include in the final, closing performance on Saturday is a piece called Silver Spurs that's part of a trilogy about wartime experiences called Three Soldiers. Silver Spurs is based on excepts from my great-great-grandfather's diary during the Civil War, and recollections from my great-grandmother."
The trilogy also includes recollections from a World War I veteran, and present-day letters and e-mails between a soldier in Iraq and his wife.
Read the entire story here.
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The Military is getting social and in today’s biggest development, The National Guard is now on Twitter. Honestly, being a Guardsman and deploying twice with the National Guard since 2004, I can’t say how happy I am to see them on Twitter finally. I’ve blogged since 2004 and it’s been great to see the Guard get connected over the years. The National Guard even has me beat on the number of social media sites they’re connected to – Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube to name a few.
Wow, the next thing you know the National Guard will have their own Match.com Dating profile. Or maybe a Webkinz.
Twitter is here folks. It’s awesome for a million reasons especially if you’re building a presence online. But it’s awesome for other reasons too. Namely, Linguini: the “talking, tweeting” pasta. My newest follower.
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(Blogs Over Baghdad) For better or worse, people don’t sit down and watch the evening news with Walter Cronkite anymore. Instead they get their news (and share it with others) over the Internet. Personally, I don’t understand Twitter, but it apparently has played a role in social movements and international relief efforts in places like Iran and Indonesia.
Even the Army has realized the importance of this evolving media. Military leaders and organizations have their own FaceBook pages to share information, recruit Soldeirs, and maintain a positive and forward-thinking public image.
Will these new communication tools become a permanent part of the information landscape, or will they go the way of the fax machine? Only time will tell….but for now, I have tried my best to engage when it makes sense (and when this old dog can learn the new technological trick easily). As long-time readers of this blog know, I have a love-hate relationship with technology that fails me.
You can read the entire story here. And to read the issue of Warrior Citizen magazine that includes a feature of Blogs Over Baghdad, you can download the PDF.
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It looks like any day now we can expect to hear the much anticipated DoD’s Official Policy on Social Media. More and more news stories about cybersecurity and social media are popping up all over the DoD sites. In a recent story on DefenseLink.mil, Pentagon Officials stressed cybersecurity:
“The threats change, the software changes, the sophistication of the threat changes,” she said. “We also change the way we defend. It’s a persistent threat, and [hackers] will look for other ways to attack. If you had computer defenses that worked two years ago, they won’t work today.”
The Internet is a lot like a large city, Jamshidi said. Overall, it is a safe area, but it’s safest on Main Street – where all the lights work and there are police and people around, the captain said.
“But any city has dark streets and back alleys,” she said. “Some are so dangerous that the military declares them off-limits, and the same holds true for the Internet. It becomes very difficult to separate out legal and illegal activities on the back streets of the Internet.”
Oh yeah, the old analogy trick. You know? Internet = BIG SCARY city. Dark streets and back alleys = off limit sites. I used the same BIG CITY analogy on my 8-year old once and it didn’t work too well. He’s still able to stumble on off limit sites.
Though it’s been better recently. I like to make up Urban Legends like telling him he’ll grow an ear out of his forehead if he goes to MySpace. Or the computer will catch fire if he ever clicks a button that says “I am 18”.
And when he spends way too much time online, it helps if you tell him Webkinz can die from lack of sleep.
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A first step, Jenny Lumet suggested, might be to choose a format. Writing a novel might be different than, say, a cookbook, said Ms. Lumet, a screenwriter whose credits include “Rachel Getting Married” and who was there to offer help
“A book is pretty thick,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who, at 30, has served in both the Marine Corps and the Army. “I don’t know if I can come up with that much material.” He had started writing down thoughts as therapy, after a brain injury caused by a roadside bomb in Iraq left him temporarily paralyzed. “In the hospital I had lost my vision and my speech,” he said.
Read the entire story here.
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The DoD’s policy on social media is expected to be announced any day now. According to Price Floyd’s own tweets back in late September “the review and policy should be done and out sometime in the next few weeks.” There are more hints that the final policy is very, very close. From DoD Live:
Coming soon on Defense.gov, you will find links to stories, videos and other information to learn how to safely use social media to stay connected with your family while deployed; learn how to use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter appropriately and legally as a DoD employee and servicemember; and how to use the latest DoD social media tools to stay informed.
The Defense Department also released a quick video with the slogan, “Be Social, But Be Smart”. You can click the picture above to watch the video. I thought it was pretty funny, especially the opening part of the video with the service members dancing to Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow.
The video goes on to say you can use social media to share what you do best with your Mother, your Future Boss and “300 MILLION of your closest friends”. Can you even imagine having 300 MILLION, close, online friends?? I mean, I certainly can’t.
If you ask me, it would've been just as believable if the DoD had said “300 JILLION” of your closest friends. Even a KERJILLION would’ve been better. Or Infinity plus infinity.
Thanks to Price Floyd for the tip.
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Nice, almost 5 years later after writing a blog and a book, the "Military Blogfather" Colby Buzzell is still making the news.
Buzzell will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, at the Performing Arts Center on campus. Copies of his book will be available for sale before and after the lecture. His appearance is co-sponsored by the South Dakota Humanities Council.
Started in June of 2004, Buzzell's blog one of the first kept by a boots-on-the-ground soldier gained recognition for its realistic portrayal of war and its often less-than-flattering depiction of military leaders, President Bush, the anti-war movement , Army cooks and the media. By September of 2004, the Army told Buzzell he could no longer post original writing about the war.
I’m starting to think Colby just shows up at places and says something cool like, “I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
You can do those kinds of things when you’re the Blogfather. Just saying.
Read the entire story here.
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This is a picture of my Twitter account when I sign in. The Twitter Lists Beta feature displays at the top of my account. A little over a week ago I posted a brief story on the soon-to-launch Lists feature that Twitter had announced on their blog. With Twitter lists, I can now organize my friends and followers into groups. My plan is to begin organizing lists in a similar way that military bloggers are organized into Branches on Milblogging.com such as Frontlines, U.S. Army, U.S. Military Veteran, and U.S. Military Spouse.
The Twitter Lists feature is in Beta, so I can't Tweet about it according to the little splash page up top (my bad, Twitter). Thankfully a fellow twitter tweeted me after I had been tweeting about "Twitter Lists" since last night. I can't say I really knew you weren't supposed to tweet about it...I mean, I can barely read a billboard, let alone text that's written in 3-point. Because there's nothing more obvious than text this small.
Anyway, the lists are easy to setup and maintain. Once you’ve created your lists, you can only organize people that follow you by clicking on the List icon then checking one or more List boxes. Here’s an example:
Each list gets it’s own unique URL, so you can view tweets from members of the list. For example, http://twitter.com/milblogging/usarmy will include all Twitter users who are members of the U.S. Army.
I hope to get started this weekend organizing the military community who follow me into lists.
It's a pretty slick feature, I guess. I'm just a bit shocked this is the biggest feature Twitter is releasing considering the company is rumored to be worth a billion bucks. I mean, with that kind of MONEY shouldn't Twitter be releasing something a little more more cool, like maybe a Twitter picture feature? Or maybe a speedier site? Or, I dunno, a Time Machine decorated like a Faberge egg?
NOTE: Because "Twitter Lists" is in Beta it's hit or miss right now. If you send me an email with your affiliation to the Military community such as Branch, Veteran, Spouse, Supporter, Parent, Foreign Military, etc...I'll make sure to get you added. Drop me a line along with your Twitter ID: milblogging@gmail.com.
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Lindy Kyzer posted a story today on the Army’s Official Blog that discusses the importance of military bloggers. Here's an excerpt:
As little as 2 years ago the relationship between the military and bloggers was not an overly positive one. Unclear policies and the growing disconnect between traditional and social media outlets left us in a strained relationship, at best. For me, from the beginning of my Army career the milblog community was one I knew I needed to reach out to in order to be able to successfully tell our Soldiers stories. Since then they have grown even more critical, and more connected to traditional media outlets.
There has been a serious culture shift among our Army leadership which has helped for forge positive relationships between the Army and milbloggers. Former Secretary of the Army Pete Geren had a particular interest in military bloggers – so much so that he participated in three blogger’s roundtables during his tenure and encouraged his staff to do even more. Chief of Public Affairs Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner had participated in Department of Defense blogger’s roundtables as MNF-I spokesperson and wanted to increase the Army’s engagement in that medium upon his arrival. This kind of senior leader “buy-in” has boded well for the Army’s relationship with the milblogging community.
It’s in our best interest to support the efforts of milbloggers – many of whom are active duty Soldiers, veterans or others with a close personal connection or awareness of military issues. If we really believe that our Soldiers are our best spokespersons – and most of us do – than who better to tell the stories from the front lines than our own people. And it’s not just on the front lines of battle, it’s on the homefront where milbloggers make an impact. the number of spouse and family member bloggers continues to increase, and the online support network created is an important one.
I’ve got to admit it’s a nice story. It’s like a major public demonstration of affection towards military bloggers by the U.S. Army. I mean, it’s kinda hard to do a take-back at this point. I copy/pasted the text into Word and saved it to my computer. Then burned another copy to CD and printed about twenty copies.
And just for the heck of it, I took a picture (it’ll last longer).
Read the entire story here.
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