I received some sad news earlier today that retired TOPGUN pilot US Navy Capt. Carroll LeFon, better known as Lex of the military blog Neptunus Lex, was killed Tuesday when a jet he was flying crashed at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada.

I didn’t have the privilege of knowing Carroll in person like many other bloggers have, but I did chat with him on occasion over e-mail throughout the years and as recently as last year when he won Best U.S. Military Veteran Blog.

He was also one of the first bloggers to appear here on Milblogging.com when and I did a short feature on him back in 2006. 

When I asked him why he started blogging he told me, “I guess you could say I started blogging as a way of sharpening my writing skills. Anyone who`s been to see, or flown fighter aircraft  has stories to tell, and I was interested in getting some of mine out there as well, and seeing what interest there might be. It`s also a sort of on-line diary of thoughts, and reactions to the days events - some of those, looking back, get pretty stale in time - but in doing so you form a kind of community of interest. A fun hobby that lets you interact with other people.”

You can learn more about Carroll on his About page.

His facebook page is here http://www.facebook.com/nep.lex

My prayers go out to the family and friends he left behind.

Here are posts online by other bloggers.

USNI Blog
Susan Katz Keating
Argghhh!!!
The SandGram
AW1Tim
This Ain’t Hell
Blackfive
Steeljaw Scribe
CDR Salamander
Grim’s Hall
Soldier’s Angels
NavyTimes
instapinch.com
The Wood Shed
Homefront Six
Carmichael's Position
The Tailhook Association
Bouhammer's Military Blog
Soldier's Angels Germany
Little Drops.....

I will continue update this post with online tributes as I receive them or come across them.

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How the U.S. Military Shares Its Rich History With Facebook Timeline. Many brands are energizing their social media presences with Facebook Timeline, and the U.S. military has taken this opportunity to present its extensive history in a unique and engaging way. The Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines and Coast Guard have spent weeks preparing their individual Facebook Pages for the switch over to Timeline. Each branch has filled its Page with centuries worth of history, photos and interesting facts...
(Mashable)

Twinsburg couple uses Facebook to stay close during Guardsman's deployment to Afghanistan. Shortly before dawn on Nov. 17, 2011, Ohio Army National Guardsman Tim Sheaffer of Twinsburg rushed into an Afghan coffee shop after the Internet went down at his barracks. There, accompanied by the beat of the caf 's European techno music, he used Skype to connect with his wife, Amanda, at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna, to watch the birth of their daughter, Brooklyn...
(Cleveland.com)

Soldier's combat memoir 'Outlaw Platoon' a remarkable, compelling tale. On Sean Parnell's first day in eastern Afghanistan in February 2006, the forward operating base he was assigned to came under fire from enemy rockets. A group of children near the base were injured. Parnell, reacting instinctively, scooped up a young girl who had suffered horrific injuries. "Itsokayitsokayitsokay," he told the girl, trying to quell her panic as he rushed her to safety. With every step Parnell took, the girl's screams weakened until there was no sound at all. She died in his arms, the blood from her wounds staining his uniform...
(Pittsburg Tribune-Review)

Warrior - the story of a real-life war horse. The incredible story of Warrior, the real-life War Horse, has long been a legend in our family. Bred by my grandfather General Jack Seely in 1908, a couple of miles from his home at Yafford on the Isle of Wight, no horse and rider can ever have been through such a sustained series of adventures. They walked off the boat together at Le Havre in 1914 to join the Western Front, and cheated death a thousand times, surviving all four years of the war from Ypres to the Somme, Passchendaele and Cambrai before returning home where they continued to ride on together...
(Radio Times)

DARPA says iPads, Android phones and other gadgets a threat to US military. There's a growing threat to the US military, according to the Pentagon's research wing DARPA, and it's not from nuclear or biological weapons. According to the Pentagon’s research wing, the iPads, Android phones and other gadgets that most westerners carry around with them every day are keeping the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA]  leadership up at night...
(Daily Telegraph)

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Below is a closer look at this year’s Milblog Conference panels.

Military and the Media
Panel will examine the changing role of traditional and nontraditional media and their coverage of defense issues and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How did the different kinds of media coverage change and evolve over the past 10 years of conflict? What were the key accomplishments and what will defense coverage look like going forward as a new defense posture and budget realities emerge in a post-war era?

Benefits: Promises Delivered, Delayed or Dismissed?
After a decade plus of combat operations the issue of how we care for our veterans is taking center stage. From changing retirement time frames to medical care and wounded warrior programs, this panel will examine if the promises made to our fighting forces are being delivered, delayed or dismissed.

Rise of Social Media in Service Branches
From the Arab Spring to the Twitter war between NATO and the Taliban; social media is the next emerging voice in covering world news and defense issues. Is social media a source for news? An extension of a blog? Is it the front lines of direct communication between entities, or just an information source? This panel will look at how the service branches have responded to the rise in social media and examine how social media is changing reporting and information dissemination in the defense arena.

Pen and Sword: MilBloggers Who Had An Impact
Discuss with key military bloggers their experiences blogging from and about the front lines. This panel will look at the evolution of milblogging and how it changed the information flow out of war zones as well as how it made stories that became headlines. We’ll talk to key bloggers about their process, the roadblocks they faced from the military and how they evolved as writers and newsmakers in their own right.

As noted by Sarah, panelists and final topics are being confirmed and will be announced shortly.

Stay updated here.

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Facebook Timeline Only Goes Back to 1800. We recently covered a story about Facebook’s Timeline change starting for brand pages earlier this week. Less than a week later, they are already encountering problems. Facebook’s current timeline settings only go back to 1800, a seemingly arbitrary limit to set. The problem is not all “brands” were founded after 1800. The U.S. Army, for instance, was founded in 1775, during the American Revolution. Same for the Navy and Marine Corps...
(WebProNews)

Australia army chief vows action over Facebook posts. Australia's army chief says serving military personnel who posted racist and sexist comments on a private Facebook site will face action. The site came under the spotlight after an investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It said the site - used by more than 1,000 current and former members of the military - contained comments offensive to women, Muslims and immigrants...
(BBC)

Gay Marine’s kiss sparks praise, anger. If any event marks the day the military’s gay ban was really over, it came last week, when Marine CorpsSgt. Brandon Morgan, in uniform, jumped onto his boyfriend and the two engaged in a passionate kiss at an on-base military-family homecoming. A friend photographed the embrace, which later was posted on the “Gay Marine” Facebook page and triggered an outpouring of support — and some dissent...
(The Washington Times)

Correspondent discusses role of wartime reporters. Veterans from Glen Rock, Ridgewood and Ho-Ho-Kus gathered at a Ridgewood AM Rotary Club meeting to hear first-hand accounts from a New York Times reporter who has covered American military operations for more than a decade. James Dao, national correspondent on veteran and military affairs at the New York Times, was guest speaker at last week's Rotary meeting, held at Osteria Fa Fiamma in Ridgewood. Local veterans were invited to attend the meeting to hear the special presentation...
(NorthJersey.com)

New York Man Who Touted Bin Laden on MySpace Gets 27 Years in Prison. A 24-year-old Brooklyn, New York, man who transcribed Osama bin Laden videos on his MySpace page was sentenced to 27 years in prison for conspiring to commit murder overseas and supporting terrorism. U.S. District Judge John Gleeson in Brooklyn sentenced Betim Kaziu today. In July, a jury convicted him on four counts, including an attempt to provide support to a terrorist organization overseas. “You grew up in Brooklyn and you decided to murder your own country’s soldiers,” Gleeson said. “You admired Osama bin Laden.”
(Bloomberg)

News: Guard exhibit, artifacts to tell 9/11-era Guard story. ARLINGTON, Va. – With the final crossing of troops from Iraq into Kuwait, Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn are finding a new home – in museums. As Camp Victory was closing, one National Guard officer took it upon himself to preserve a piece of the Guard’s history during the Iraq War – a sign that hung outside his office building, showing the jointness of the war effort. Army Col. Robert Preiss, Army National Guard representative, Reserve Forces Policy Board, was then a member of the National Guard Affairs staff for U.S. Forces-Iraq when he recognized the sign’s historical value...
(DVIDS)

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I don’t quite get Twitter as a company allowing terrorists to use its platform.

I’m even a little more surprised when an online news site encourages readers to follow terrorists on Twitter, even if it has slight sarcastic undertones.

“If you follow just one terrorist on Twitter, make it @HSMPress”, writes Slate reporter Will Oremus.

“As I wrote in a recent Slate piece, the Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab runs by far the most interesting social media feed in the insurgency industry. With breaking news about suicide bombings and useful insights into al-Shabaab’s thinking…”

In his story now titled “Follow Friday: Terrorists Who Tweet”, Will also writes about a Twitter user who goes by @AskAlShabaab. 

This is actually what the story really seems to be about, plugging @AskAlShabaab. 

The account was setup to ask funny questions of @HSMPress and was apparently started by a Slate reader.

“Tweeting in the voice of an over-enthusiastic tween, @AskAlShabaab asks @HSMPress questions that range from inane to insulting to really awkward. All come studded with a  profusion of punctuation marks, mainly exclamation points,” writes Will.

Questions include things like, “Why are so many of the street names for Mogadishu blank on Google Maps?!?!? How am I supposed to find my way around!!!???” to “What do you think of Panera's new turkey artichoke panini!?!?!? I liked the old one better!!!!”.

Full story here.

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What’s taking place at this year’s Milblog Conference?

Here’s a look at the agenda.

Friday, May 11, 8 PM-12 AM

Westin Arlington Gateway, Arlington, VA
Reception
801 North Glebe Road
Arlington, VA 22203

Saturday, May 12, 7:45 AM-5:00 PM

Westin Arlington Gateway, Arlington, VA
Breakfast and Conference
801 North Glebe Road
Arlington, VA 22203

Saturday’s Timeline:

Breakfast Served in the Atrium 7:45 – 8:45 AM
Opening Remarks – T. McCreary 8:45 – 9:00 AM
Guest Speaker 9:00 – 9:45 AM
Panel 1: Military and the Media 9:45 – 11:00 AM
Break 11:00 – 11:15 AM
Panel 2: Benefits: Promises Delivered, Delayed or Dismissed? 11:00 – 12:15 PM
Lunch Sponsored by Wal-Mart 12:30 – 1:15 PM
DoD Blogger’s Round Table 1:15 – 2:00 PM
Panel 3: Rise of Social Media in the Service Branches 2:00 – 3:15 PM
Break 3:15 – 3:30 PM
Panel 4: The Pen and the Sword: MilBloggers Who Had An Impact 3:30 – 4:45 PM
Closing Remarks 4:45 – 5:00 PM

Stay tuned for more details and updates here.

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Army investigates sexist Facebook group. Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison says an investigation has been launched to find out if serving Defence Force members are responsible for extreme sexist and racist comments posted on an internet chat site. Tonight the ABC's 7.30 revealed that hundreds of abusive messages have been posted on a private Facebook site used exclusively by more than 1,000 current and former Australian soldiers. Defence was reportedly alerted to the contents of the group's site eight months ago when a former military police officer and member of the group wrote to Defence Force leaders...
(ABC News)

Marines stay at forefront of social media development. The Page, created two years ago, is the Marine Corps’ official flagship social media outlet and has nearly 2 million fans. The Marines Page is one of only a small number of organizations chosen by Facebook to feature this new updated Page.  “As Marines, we take pride in our firsts,” said Greg Reeder, director of Marine Corps Production. “First to fight our nations battles, first to perfect modern amphibious warfare, and leaders in military action and peacekeeping operations around the world. Nearly two years ago, the Corps began embracing the social media community and today leads the way as the largest Department of Defense presence on Facebook.”
(DVIDS)

Facebook enlists U.S. military for new Pages format debut. Facebook got help from the U.S. military for the rollout of its new Timeline format for Pages on Feb. 29, but the mostly splashy debut was a little bit dampened by a technical glitch. Enlisted as launch partners several weeks in advance, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard introduced their new Facebook Pages with the new format, which permits larger photos and a timeline offering easy access to previously-published and historical information. However, the Navy’s Facebook Page did not convert to the new format as anticipated. Some users can see the new format, while other cannot, Lt. Commander Christopher Servello, director of emerging media for the Navy, said in an interview with Federal Computer Week. He said the problem appeared to be a technical malfunction by Facebook...
(Federal Computer Week)

10 Rules For Social Media from the Army Reserve’s Chief of Social Media. 1.Develop a “Plan on a Page”- Before you sign up for Facebook , twitter, LinkedIn or any platform you must evaluate who your audience is (internal and external), what your organization’s key communications goals are, and what’s your desired “end state”. Having a Facebook page is not a social media strategy it’s a reactionary effort to “keep up with the Jones.” Communications plans are a key part of any corporation’s strategy and social media is not immune to this step. 2.Integrate with all other mediums- Don’t “Work in a vacuum”- Continually ask how you can integrate with the other mediums (your media team, outreach/ events team, executive communications, etc). If your senior executive is doing a media interview he should be plugging your social media sites, and if the chief of corporate policy is sending out an internal communications directive she should be “asking for feedback” via your internal social media channels. Never miss an opportunity to plug and promote your sites through all your organization’s media executions and outlets!
(College Recruiter)

Wounded British journalist smuggled from Syria. A wounded British photographer who had been trapped in the besieged Syrian city of Homs was spirited safely into Lebanon on Tuesday in a risky journey that killed 13 rebels who helped him escape the relentless shelling and gunfire. A Syrian diplomat stormed out of an emergency U.N. meeting amid renewed calls for a cease-fire to deliver humanitarian aid. A top human rights official said a U.N. panel's report concluded that members of the Damascus regime were responsible for "crimes against humanity."
(Times Union)

Vets' Real Stories Compared to a Fictional War. To help both the actors and the theater-goers understand the emotional impact experienced by the characters, Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company asked combat veterans to share their stories via posts on YouTube. Some of these clips air while audience members find their seats before the play, adding a sense of reality to what actors Brian Bielawski and Greg Watanabe are about to portray, and showing a sign of respect to veterans...
(voicesofsandiego.org)

One Woman’s Story of Surviving Libya’s Civil War. “One of my sisters, who’s abroad at the moment, she’s planning to come back within the next two days, so that if we’re going to die, we’re going to die altogether.” Those were the words of Hutaf Shanna, speaking to The World‘s Lisa Mullins one year ago. Hutaf was speaking from the Libyan capital, Tripoli, as Colonel Gaddafi clamped down violently on demonstrations in the city, and the country began its descent into civil war.  Hutaf used a false name, Arwa, to protect her identity. For the same reason, she didn’t tell us she worked for the British embassy, or the fact that she was eight months pregnant. Now Hutaf brings us up to date...
(PRI's The World)

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Join us for the 7th Annual MilBlog Conference at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel in Arlington, VA.

The Annual MilBlog Conference is the premiere event of the year for the military blogging community, which is comprised of active-duty service members, veterans, military spouses, military parents and military supporters.

President George W. Bush, General David Petraeus, Admiral John C. Harvey, Jr., Vice Admiral Mark Fox, LTG William Caldwell, LTG Mike Oates, MG Kevin Bergner, MG David Hogg, the Honorable Pete Geren, Andrew Exum and Donald Rumsfeld have addressed previous conferences.

You can register here.

Information on the agenda, conference panels, and much more is now available on the Conference website.

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It was nice to see an article yesterday that appeared in The New York Times: At War section called “As Social Media Expands, Military Bloggers Find More Outlets”. 

While the NYT regularly involves military bloggers in opinion pieces and other stories, this particular story written by milblogger Maj. Crispin Burke, an Army officer currently stationed in Germany, discussed military blogging and social media.

This month, the editors of The Thunder Run published a two-part lament on the decline of the milblog, echoing a post by Tom Ricks of Foreign Policy from January of last year.  But milblogging is far from dead.  With today’s social media tools, it is very much alive; and with the backing of the Defense Department, it has become more mainstream than ever.

There is some truth to the criticism:  traditional blogging platforms, like Blogger and WordPress, occupy an ever-waning middle ground between mainstream media and Web 2.0 tools.

Professional news sites — The New York Times and Time magazine in particular — frequently carry blog posts written by professional journalists and amateur writers. Not to mention, some bloggers have abandoned their blogs as they turn their hobbies into respectable writing careers. A former milblogger, Matt Gallagher, has become a prolific writer since penning his memoir, “Kaboom,” in 2010; as has a former Army Ranger, Andrew Exum, who founded the blog Abu Muqawama. Army of Dude’s Alex Horton was even hired specifically as a blogger by the Veteran’s Affairs department soon after leaving the Army.

Read the full story here.

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FOX 2 News out of St. Louis is reporting the story of a military scam that targeted the grandparents of Lance Corporal Wayne Simons, a U.S. Marine.

It`s a familiar sounding scam but with a disturbing twist for military families.  A Belleville grandmother and grandfather were taken for their life savings by someone pretending to be their grandson.

Lance Corporal Wayne Simons is serving his country in the U.S. Marines.  Someone seemed to know an awful lot about his deployment and that`s what unnerving to his family.

‘The caller knew a lot of information she should not have been privy to,’ said Charlene Simons, grandmother.

She wired thousands of dollars to a person she thought was her son until her life`s savings were gone.

‘I would swear on a stack of Bible`s that was my grandson,’ said Charlene Simons.

Read the full story here.

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Afghanistan Riots: How Some Young Afghans are Using Social Media to Call for Calm. Though the desecration of the Korans at Bagram caused grave offense to Afghans generally (demonstrably more so than the killing of civilians by any party in the conflict), not everyone in Afghanistan is literally up in arms over the incident. Amidst the ongoing violence, many of the young, media-savvy Afghans I know have turned to social networking sites to express their dismay at the destruction wrought by the riots...
(UN Dispatch)

Gay Marine’s Homecoming Kiss Goes Viral: Internet Loves Sgt. Brandon Morgan and Partner Dalan Wells. A homecoming kiss between Sgt. Brandon Morgan and his male partner Dalan Wells has gone viral on the Internet ever since the photo was shared on the Gay Marines Facebook Page on Saturday. The photo of the sergeant receiving a welcome home kiss from his partner comes about five months after the military's ban on openly gay service expired. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy that had banned openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. military ended last September. The picture has received more than 17,000 likes on Facebook and more than 3,600 comments and shares with lots of kind words for the couple...
(International Business Times)

Bravo Mom: Social media keep military families informed, comforted. Modern technology is not only a marvel for those protecting our country, it’s also a godsend to those of us back home while our sons and daughters are deployed. I cannot imagine what it was like for the parents, spouses and other loved ones of soldiers past who did not have this opportunity. Letters, many of them long and poignant, remain as keepsakes of the Civil War. Word War I, also known as “The Great War,” was the first war in history in which the majority of soldiers were considered “men of letters.” I have read heart-wrenching stories of families receiving letters long after their beloved soldier had paid the ultimate sacrifice...
(The Daily News Online)

'Act of Valor,' featuring real Navy SEALs, wins box office war. Military drama "Act of Valor" claimed the No. 1 spot on movie box office charts, beating expectations with an estimated $24.7 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales during another busy weekend at theaters. Tyler Perry's new drama, "Good Deeds," finished in second place with $16.0 million, according to studio estimates released on Sunday as Hollywood prepared for the Academy Awards...
(MSNBC)

BBB warns seniors of various scams. Grandparents scams. This scam includes a telephone call from someone claiming to be a relative stuck in a foreign country, needing money to get home. Often the caller claims to a relative serving in the military who needs money for medical needs. The BBB advises that seniors should ask the caller for their name or other information that would be only known to a relative...
(9news.com)

Egypt's ruling military council's FB page misquotes Thomas Friedman. Administrators of the ruling military council’s Facebook page launched a scathing attack on Sunday on prominent New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman following the latter’s most recent editorial. In a NYT op-ed last week entitled “Egypt’s step backward,” Friedman accused Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) of resisting political and economic reforms in Egypt. Friedman slammed Egyptian International Cooperation Minister Faiza Aboul Naga in particular, citing her role in the ongoing case against US-based NGOs charged with operating illegally in Egypt...
(Ahram Online)

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Several days ago I wrote a story entitled "Afghan war reporter Mustafa Kazemi @CombatJourno" based on an article that appeared in the popular blog Mashable praising Kazemi for his war coverage.

What I didn't realize at the time is that Kazemi had been involved in some controversy last year, controversy that makes it difficult to believe much of what he writes.

In 2011, military blogger Michael Yon used Kazemi as a source in several stories, but what Blackfive went on to find out, was that Kazemi had not only been padding his online resume, but was blatantly lying about his background.

"A military linguist, Infantry mortar man, Explosive Ordnance specialist and also trained in Close Quarters Battle. This is a serious dude. Except he isn't. Any of those things. At all. He is a liar and Yon used his information over and over again as a credible source," wrote Uncle Jimbo.

Like Mashable, I missed this detail.

Today, according to the Revision History of his Wikipedia page, he is trying to erase any and all negative mentions about his past.

But the controversial past remains with him for now at least.

Today, a special section called Controversy appears and reads:

"Mustafa Kazemi's credibility has been called into question. In August 2011, Kazemi was caught lying about his resume.[3] According to screenshots obtained by the website Blackfive, Kazemi claimed to have worked in the United States Army and a graduate the United States Army Infantry School.

Kazemi also claimed to be qualified in close quarters combat, explosive ordinance disposal, and a private first class in the military occupational specialty 11C, infantryman. When questioned on his qualifications, Kazemi admitted that he had padded his record saying, "I accept that I blew this out of proportion. I was a language assistant and shouldn't have called myself all those."

He has also sought to shape his public image by deleting or editing any references to this controversy."

According to the independent, not-for-profit website journalisted, Kazemi is a columnist at The Blottr, at Mashable and at Combat Journalist.

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Japanese Americans urged to share internment story. Bill Shishima shares how he joined the Boy Scouts as a 12-year-old behind the barbed wire of a Japanese American internment camp, or how he had to work on a rabbit farm to earn his keep when his parents couldn't afford to move the family back to California after World War II.  The 81-year-old retired teacher answers the questions of those who ask - school groups, news reporters and sometimes his children and 14-year-old granddaughter - but he's never sat down and recorded his life story or that of his now-deceased parents, who lost the family's grocery and hotel business when they were sent to Wyoming's Heart Mountain camp...
(Seattle Times Newspaper)

Lejeune spouses testing social networking site. Military spouses from Camp Lejeune will have the first opportunity this month to test-drive a social networking and information website designed to connect the Silent Ranks worldwide.  The site, Baseguide.com, is the brainchild of staff at Military Spouse Magazine, who envisioned a place where spouses and military families could learn about new home bases, blog, share information and receive important updates. “It’s going to be a comprehensive military life site, and it will have everything related to military life,” magazine editor-in-chief Babette Maxwell said. “It will have ways to information share, blogs, forums, information sharing, picture sharing.”
(JDNews)

Look who's watching. Social media has become the latest way governments, police and corporations spy on their citizens, most of whom have no idea they are being watched. From the Syrian government trolling Facebook to find dissidents during the early days of the country's uprising, to commercial organisations buying users' online proclivities to sell to advertisers, social media is a snooper's honeypot. The NSW Police scan these sites as part of routine criminal investigations, and even burglars have become savvy about social media...
(The Sydney Morning Herald)

Local Residents Welcome World Memory Project. It is the age of Google+, the iPad 2 and the iPhone 5, to name just a few of the latest and fastest rising global tools to help shape the future.  Yet, one of the most powerful web based tools more understatedly introduced recently is a tool just as critically important to the world because it helps shape the past. It is called the World Memory Project, a combined effort on the part of the Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry.com. It allows the public to both contribute to and access millions of historical documents related to survivors and victims of the Nazis during World War II... 
(New City Patch)

Navy Wife launches MilitaryTownAdvisor.com. As a Navy wife for the last seven years, I have moved across the country several times with the military. I understand the uncertainty and strain that comes with packing up your family and moving to a new town, state or even country. Much of the stress and anxiety begins before you even find out your orders. As newlyweds, my husband and I were stationed in Kingsville, Texas. I was new to military life and the only information I knew was that we were either going to a base on the East or the West Coast. I immediately began researching both coasts and attempting to gather as much information as possible. I quickly learned that the majority of information that can be found on the internet about towns and areas are tourist guides and statistics about the demographics of the area...
(Learn more)

In praise of war correspondents.  Marie Colvin and I covered our first combat together in 1986, after the U.S. bombed Libya. She was 30, pretty, ambitious and talented. She soon had Col. Moammar Gadhafi and his aides in her thrall and parlayed her many scoops for United Press International into a job as a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London. I last saw her a year ago, in Cairo during the revolution...
(Chicago Tribune)

Battling Sudan’s Bombs With Videos. AS Sudan tries to bomb and starve the Nuba people into submission, it faces an unlikely antagonist: an American man from Florida who married a Nuban woman, gets by on local foods like locusts, and is fighting mortars with video cameras. Ryan Boyette, 30, is trying to get President Obama to do more to intervene to stop the bombing and avert a famine. He is risking his life to collect video of atrocities that the world frankly doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in...
(The New York Times)

Army Private Accused in WikiLeaks Case Charged with Aiding the Enemy. U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning (left) was formally charged on Thursday under the Espionage Act (18 USC Chapter 37) with 22 crimes, including aiding the enemy. In what is described as “the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history,” Manning is accused of passing over 700,000 documents and video clips to WikiLeaks, the widely known website devoted to exposing government corruption throughout the world. At the arraignment presided over by Colonel Denise Lind at Fort Meade, Maryland, Manning refused to enter a plea...
(The New American)

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It’s a tragic story being reported by WPSD Local 6.

Megan Born’s husband Joshua Born was one of two American soldiers killed this week during a protest in Afghanistan.

Megan was not notified of his death by the military.  She found out through a text message after news had been leaked on Facebook.

"It's crazy how I found out," said Born.

Born can't stop thinking about the text message that changed her life.

"She got a text from an army wife on post who had heard," said Cindy Parker, Megan's mother.

She had heard the news Megan's Army husband Josh was dead.

He'd been shot to death in the chest near the military police post in Afghanistan where he worked.

"We didn't quite believe that anything happened to him. We thought it was just a mix-up," said Parker.

Parker said she and her daughter started making calls.

They'd just talked to Josh hours before. He'd told them the violence was getting worse.

"Somehow it had leaked out and somebody told her on Facebook," said Parker.

Parker said another Army wife posted information about Josh's death on Facebook. That's how the news spread.

You can read the full story here.

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Stars and Stripes objects to move. Through war and peace, Stars and Stripes has vigorously guarded its independence from military control. The newspaper that published the World War II cartoons of Bill Mauldin and the dispatches of famed battlefield correspondents covers the American military around the world but is officially separate from it. So the latter-day heirs of Mauldin, et al., are up in arms about a Defense Department directive that, they say, could compromise their proud tradition of reporting without the Pentagon’s second-guessing...
(The Washington Post)

Why War Reporters Go Solo, Despite The Risks. War correspondents have always been at the short end of the actuarial tables. Life insurance salesmen do not pester them. No war is safe, and no correspondent is bulletproof. But the rules of the game have been changing, and the recent deaths in Syria of two prominent correspondents, Anthony Shadid of The New York Times and Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain's Sunday Times, show how this line of work has grown even riskier. One of the unfortunate truths of modern war reporting is that many conflicts can only be covered by going solo on the rebel side, which leaves a reporter even more exposed and vulnerable...
(NPR)

In praise of war correspondents. Marie Colvin and I covered our first combat together in 1986, after the U.S. bombed Libya. She was 30, pretty, ambitious and talented. She soon had Col. Moammar Kadafi and his aides in her thrall and parlayed her many scoops for United Press International into a job as a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London...
(Los Angeles Times)

‘Act of Valor’ Directors Talk Authentic Story & Casting Real Navy SEALs. Using active-duty Navy SEALs combined with live gunfire, the new film Act of Valor tells the story of a group of soldiers trying to protect America from a series of terrorist attacks. In a recent interview, I talked to directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh about casting the SEALs, their mission in the film, and how they made it feel so authentic...
(Screen Rant)

Raw Video: No Plea in Manning's WikiLeaks Case. An Army private declined to enter a plea Thursday to charges he engineered the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history. Pfc. Bradley Manning also deferred a choice of whether to be tried by a military jury. (Feb. 23)
(YouTube)

Facebook: Medvedev “De-friends” Georgia. Many Facebook users block other users for posting nasty comments on their wall, but few have blocked an entire country. Yet this is what happened yesterday when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev apparently decided he'd had it with angry posts from Georgia.  The onslaught against the Russian president’s Facebook page took place on the February 23 Homeland Defender’s Day, a Russian public holiday that commemorates military service. To mark the day, Georgians (and not only) in a loosely coordinated campaign bombarded Medvedev’s page with requests to withdraw Russian troops from separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia, territories kept under heavy Russian military guard since the 2008 Russia-Georgia war...
(EurasiaNet)

Freed Myanmar blogger pushes 'people's voice'. YANGON — Aside from an emotional reunion with family and friends, Myanmar blogger Nay Phone Latt knew exactly what he wanted to do after his release from prison: get back online. It was a bold move, given that his Internet activities landed him a two-decade jail term back in 2008 under the former military regime. "There are so many friends online who supported me via my blog," said the 32-year-old, a few weeks into his newfound freedom. "So what I wanted to do when I was released was to go online and post a new post."
(AFP)

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Here's a story by Karen Leden of the 87th Communications squadron about privacy with social networking.

JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. -- Social Networking services are internet programs such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter that allows people to connect to one another through internet or mobile devices. These sites allow you to engage in social networking activities and keep in touch even from forward-deployed locations. However, you should always keep in mind anyone with access to internet-based capabilities must employ sound security.

In addition users should make sure their personal opinions can't represent the policy or official position of the DOD.

Your personal profiles can pose a huge security risk. Some people post more than enough information for someone to steal their identity: date of birth, hometown, address, email, school, telephone and names of family members. Avoid posting this information and limit any personal information to prevent criminals from filling out forms in your name or guessing your passwords. If someone can impersonate you, then there is a huge danger to your privacy and military OPSEC. Always be aware of what information you have posted in case a stranger approaches you and seems to have the same interests as you do.

Secure your passwords and make sure they are complex. Do not use the same passwords for multiple accounts. If you use a public computer it may store your password or have hacker software to log your keystrokes. Never talk about passwords, locations, personnel and their movements, sensitive data, or controlled unclassified information. These items are a huge risk to operations security. Also, you should never post defamatory, obscene, abusive, racist, bullying or otherwise illegal information, as it may result in administrative, disciplinary or even legal action against you. Once you post something, it's out there forever. A friend could repost it or someone could hijack your friend's profile and gain access to your information.

A new trend in information technology includes applications that use the GPS in your mobile device to automatically post your physical location to your profile in real time. You can endanger yourself, your coworkers or current operations, simply by logging into social-networking services. Many people are unaware the photos they take with their smart phones and load to the internet have been geographically tagged.

Some people think if you don't sign up for social networking your information is safe. People can still post information about you, geolocate you or tag you in photos. If you don't have an account, someone could easily set one up in your name and fool your friends and family into connecting to their profile. You should regularly search your name in popular network services and search engines to see what has been posted about you and to ensure no one has setup an account with your name, pretending to be you. You should also let your friends know whether you do or do not use social networking services so they won't be tricked into giving away information to a false profile.

Read the full story and get more information on the new DOD Social Networking CBT here.

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Respected American war journalist Marie Colvin killed in fierce bombardment in Syria. She was instantly recognizable for the eye patch that hid a shrapnel injury — a testament to Marie Colvin’s courage, which took her behind the front lines of the world’s deadliest conflicts to write about the suffering of individuals trapped in war. After more than two decades of chronicling conflict, Colvin became a victim of it Wednesday, killed by shelling in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.Colvin, 56, died alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, the French government announced. Freelance photographer Paul Conroy and journalist Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro were wounded...
(The Washington Post)

Syrian Video Blogger Reportedly Killed in Homs as Shelling Continues. A Syrian video blogger whose images of the fierce military assault in the city of Homs were broadcast around the world in recent weeks was killed on Tuesday, fellow activists said. The blogger, who chronicled the uprising in Baba Amr, a district of Homs that slipped from government control last year, was identified as Rami al-Sayed by the Web site Bambuser, which hosted streams of live video from his camera on Tuesday, shortly before his death...
(The New York Times)

US Army turns to Pinterest and social media to engage with a broader audience. Social sharing service Pinterest may have had to deal with some pesky copyright questions lately, but that isn't stopping adoption of the service — even by the US military. The Atlantic Wire took a recent look at the social media operation of the US Army, which includes a heavy investment in maintaining a Pinterest profile. The Army's involvement is an attempt to broaden its reach using social media; while most that follow the military are men, the Army sees the primarily female-centric Pinterest as an opportunity to reach out to family members and spouses...
(The Verge)

USACE Galveston District's Public Affairs Office wins top honors. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District’s Public Affairs Office captured one first-place award, a second-place award and a third-place award in the 2011 USACE Herbert A. Kassner Public Affairs Competition. Public affairs staff earned a first-place unit award for outstanding achievements in the realm of community relations for its water safety campaign, a second-place individual honor awarded to Deputy Public Affairs Officer Isidro Reyna for outstanding print journalism among Army public affairs civilians and a third-place community relations unit award for its Texas City Ship Channel Deepening Project and Celebration special event...
(DVIDS)

Celebrities and armed forces are separate groups. When I was a freshman Index columnist and struggling to come up with new ideas, my editor told me to ask myself, ‘What made me mad this week?' Almost four years later, I still do that from time to time, and this week, military fanatics stepped into my crosshairs. My initial upset with Army wives, Marine mothers and the American-loving, navy obsession started with the death of recording artist Whitney Houston. My Facebook news feed filled with posts like, "Whitney Houston died today, it's sad, sure. But the entire world doesn't need to stop spinning for her. … Outstanding men fought and sweat and suffered and died, so that you all could live peacefully. She met her own fate curled up in a Beverly Hills hotel, nursing her selfish drug addictions, not protecting your freedom as these Marines did."
(Truman State University)

iBattle: Apple May Finally Storm the Pentagon. The Pentagon is, for all intents and purposes, an Apple-free zone. Its desktop computers have long run on Windows, and now its tablets and smartphones are all Android. But there’s a chance that might be about to change. The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command is considering a monster purchase of iPads — one that might give Apple inroads into a military market that’s eluded it so far. A recent solicitation from Air Mobility Command has the Air Force’s cargo and transport division seeking “a maximum of 18,000 iPad 2s” to serve as “Electronic Flight Bags” — essentially, tools to launch apps that digitize the flyboys’ weighty manuals. Even that purchase isn’t a slam dunk for Cupertino, since the solicitation called for iPads or “equal” devices...
(Danger Room)

Visit The Re-Designed Army Facebook Page. The official Army Athletics Facebook page has gone under a re-design and with it comes new contests, photo galleries, video features and much more dynamic content for fans who “like” the page. The Army Black Knights fan page can be accessed by clicking here or searching Army Black Knights while logged on to Facebook. “Like” the page and uncover a host of special features. The page features a poll that allows fan to choose the Facebook profile picture, a photo from the sold-out Army vs. Navy basketball doubleheader where fans can tag themselves, multi-media features and photo galleries from the weekend...
(goARMYsports.com)

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Editor's Note on February 25: Turns out Mustafa may not be that great of a war reporter that Mashable and others have painted him to be.  The trouble is that Mustafa is not the man who he says he is.  I was alerted to the issues with Mustafa yesterday.  Last year, Blackfive discovered that Mustafa padded his resume.  Here's the scoop.
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Mashable had a interesting article earlier this week on Mustafa Kazemi, an Afghanistan war reporter who uses Twitter to provide coverage on the war.

Alex Fitzpatrick writes:

“In August of last year, he live tweeted a suicide attack on the British Council in Kabul. And last September, he tweeted pictures of the building from which combatants were attacking the U.S. Embassy.

“I started using [Twitter] for news updates in January 2011 and [livetweeted] several terrorist attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in the south and east of the country, direct from the scene,” says Kazemi. “Journalists now use Twitter to share local news, stories, updates on incidents throughout the country.”

Kazemi’s coverage provides a window into Afghanistan from a native writer’s perspective that simply can’t be matched by foreign writers. He manages this all while building an online following and readership the way any web-savvy journalist would: through interaction and engagement. He’s got just less than 3,000 followers, but that number’s going up every day. Kazemi makes it a point to respond to his Twitter followers, providing his views on the Afghani news of the day.

Mustafa Kazemi uses the Twitter handle @CombatJourno and has almost 4,000 followers as of today.

According to Kazemi, Afghan journalists really began using Twitter last year.

For the full story, along with more information about Kazemi, go to Mashable.

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9 U.S. Army Social Media Best Practices. Over the past several years, the US Army has developed an exemplary program in exploiting numerous social media methods, and done so without a lot of flash, expense, or personnel. They have an engaged audience, numerous followers, and maintained a multi-pronged campaign into all of the major social media networks, including recent beach-heads in Pinterest and Google+. All this, and with a five-person team based in the Pentagon and without spending much in the way of budget too...
(Business Insider)

Pentagon Social Media Secrets Revealed . Secrets and the Pentagon go hand in hand, right? So when the Pentagon decided to host an event for Social Media Week at the fabled five-walled Department of Defense headquarters called "Military & Government Use of Social Media: What Works," we were doubtful about what secrets or insights on social media might be shared. Instead, we found that the government's approach to social media is done with a mix of dedication, training and military precision. To show that the government is very focused on its social media missions, it gathered three military leaders and two federal agency representatives who provided their insights and experience with working under strict guidelines, regulations and policies to spread the missions of government...
(GovWin)

Twitter Diplomacy: State Department 2.0. The U.S. evacuated the staff of its embassy in Damascus earlier this month owing to security issues. But that hasn't stopped Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, from using social media to keep in touch with events on the ground, and to try to shape them. On the embassy's Facebook page, for instance, Ford has posted satellite images of tanks moving on cities and a pipeline fire spreading toxic fumes. Ford is part of a new generation of diplomats using online tools such as Facebook and Twitter to get their message out. In fact, these days, U.S. diplomats take a course in what one State Department official calls "21st century statecraft" before they head out to their assignments...
(NPR)

Citizens Can't Lie About War, but Movies Can. This is a bad law -- a cynical one -- passed so politicians could pretend that they are worthy of honor for sticking up for the honor of the real heroes of our military. Lying is bad. Lying about being a military hero is worse. But the idea that it should be a federal crime -- even when no one is harmed by the lie -- is absurd when you consider all the other ways in which our armed forces, and patriotism itself, are marketed for profit and policy. The statute says you cannot lie about being a war hero. But Hollywood can make up stories about war heroes without committing a crime, and television marketers can peddle patriotism (and 9/11 itself) with impunity...
(The Atlantic)

FBI seeks to use apps to predict terrorist acts. There seems to be a smart phone application for just about everything, be it storm alerts or GPS navigation. Most recently, however, the United States government began to push for its own terrorism app that would not only track terrorist threats, but also predict foreign uprisings. The idea sprang up in response to the hundreds of intelligence personnel working daily to examine Facebook and Twitter posts in an effort to track foreign occurrences. The apparent intent of this new technology, as outlined in a formal request for information by the FBI, is to mechanize this process...
(The Crimson White)

Fairfax Bloggers Aim to Help Military Moms Get Some Sleep. Micaela Williamson (supernovamommy.com) and Andrea Khoury (novahousewives.com) have joined forces to support one woman’s quest to let mommies sleep.  Local mom Denise Stern launched Mission Sleep, a non-profit organization that strives to provide free, overnight newborn care to military moms whose husbands are deployed or wounded when baby arrives. Mission Sleep will provide an RN, LPN or Medical Technician to come into the home of a new mom and provide overnight care and education to that family, allowing mother to transition from hospital to home...
(Fairfax News)

Tweets on Trial: Law enforcement subpoenas Twitter account. Don’t be surprised if more courtroom bailiffs call for a tiny blue bird to take the stand. Twitter, Inc. was recently named a witness in filings made by the Criminal Court of the City of New York, and the man behind the tweets supposes the trend will only continue. “When I saw an email from Twitter Legal in my inbox, I figured it was spam,” Malcolm Harris tells Reuters. He found out last month that the Criminal Court of the City of New York had sent a subpoena to Twitter headquarters with a demand for them to deliver “any and all user information, including email address, as well as any and all tweets” that were related to an account Harris had registered with the microblogging site. “Twitter had attached the subpoena, and there was my handle, called by the County of New York to testify against me, the person it represents,” Harris writes...
(RT)

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When Twitter came out, I honestly thought it might be a long time before we’d hear about another social networking tool that would be used by millions.  I was wrong. 

Now there is Pinterest, another social photo sharing service that even the Army is using.

A bunch of articles appeared online today talking about the Army using Pinterest.

Here’s a look at a few of the stories.

"It's so popular that even the U.S. Army released an introduction to Pinterest," writes BrandChannel.

Via the San Jose Business Journal, “To anybody wondering what Pinterest is about and hasn't read one of the numerous posts about the growing image-sharing network, the U.S. Army now offers a primer. Which might be another sign that the creation of Palo Alto-based Cold Brew Labs is moving beyond its apparent women's shopping network base. Or it could be another example of the old joke that U.S. Army Intelligence is an oxymoron.”

The Atlantic Wire: “After discovering that the United States Army had a profile on Pinterest, we talked to the Army's social media operation to get some insight into what made them jump on the latest Internet trend. Hint: It has to do with ladies.”

I’m not gonna lie, unless someone has figured out how to fit 50 hours in a 24 hour day, I have no idea how people find the time to Facebook, tweet, blog, YouTube, Flickr, and so on.

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