According to DefenseNews the U.S. military is launching a website that mirrors Reddit called “Eureka”.  

Because it’ll be a restricted site as part of its milSuite, access will be very limited and likely so will participation.

Via DefenseNews:

If all goes according to plan, the U.S. military will soon have its own analog of Reddit, the popular social site where user votes push the best content and ideas to the top for all to see.

Called Eureka, the project is slated to go up in mid-July, joining a collection of other Defense Department-only Web tools that mirror popular social media sites such as Wikipedia and YouTube. Eureka will be a part of the Facebook analog known as milBook, though the site has been designed to feel independent.

The idea is to host discussions that lead to revolutionary solutions; for example, improved training, better ways to secure mobile devices, or any other problems that plague the military and hamper efficiency.

Over at Wired, Robert Beckhusen had this to say about the Reddit knockoff:

For years, the military has struggled over what to do about social media. One response has been to create dull, Pentagon-controlled versions of popular websites Facebook and YouTube. Now the Pentagon is preparing to launch its own version of Reddit, in another small step in the military’s quest to strip the fun out of everything on the internet.

Personally, I’m a huge fun of Reddit myself.

So if Eureka achieves even a fraction of the success that Reddit enjoys, I’m willing to bet that Eureka may become one of the more popular offerings of milSuite.

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There’s a lot going on with the military and social media from my friends over at Army Strong Stories getting props for their social media efforts, to an Air Force Reserve basic training app, to the controversy surrounding Gov. Nikki Haley’s husband (who happens to be an officer in the Natl. Guard) for calling members of the state Senate cowards on Facebook. Here are a handful of today’s news highlights.

What B2B Marketers can Learn About Blogging From the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army’s blogging program, in support of its recruiting efforts, was discussed in an interview conducted by Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examiner. Commenting on the Army’s blogging was Greg Swan, VP of Digital Strategy at Weber Shandwick, one of the Army’s marketing agencies.  In the interview, Swan explained that in the recruiting blog, Army Strong Stories, soldiers describe their experiences in joining and serving in the Army. This gives the Army’s potential recruits an honest and authentic sense of what Army life has to offer.What’s noteworthy is that the Army does not censor the soldiers’ comments. The soldiers must only notify their chain of command of their intent to blog, and adhere to the Army’s social media guidelines...
(Business 2 Community)

Haley defends military husband's Facebook post. The head of South Carolina's National Guard said Tuesday he will conduct an internal review of the Guard's policy on social media use after Gov. Nikki Haley's husband used Facebook to call members of the state Senate cowards for not voting on a bill favored by his wife.  Maj. Gen. Robert Livingston said he spoke with Michael Haley about the matter, and Michael Haley told the general he intended to express himself as a private citizen, not as a member of the Guard.  Michael Haley is an officer the South Carolina Army National Guard.  Sen. Jake Knotts, a Lexington Republican who has often clashed with Gov. Haley, called late Tuesday for Michael Haley to resign his commission if he can't abstain from "contentious partisan issues."
(The Republic)

Air Force Reserve wants an app for basic training. Military recruits have marched off to boot camp with nothing more than their families' well-wishes in the past, but today's warriors could get a little help from their smartphones. The U.S. Air Force Reserve has drawn up a wish list for a smartphone app that can help recruits adjust to basic training and military life.  The dream app combines nutrition and exercise features that even civilian smartphone owners might envy. One app feature would count calories based on photos of food taken by the phone. Another would map a recruit's runs based on their smartphone GPS. A third feature would even provide a digital assistant similar to the Apple iPhone's Siri that can talk fitness encouragement to trainees...
(MSNBC)

From cold waters to Cold War: The story of a Navy seal. It was his curiosity that turned Gunnar into a Navy seal, and if, in the end, he washed out — if he didn’t have the right level of no-questions-asked obedience — well, those who knew him said he still retained a sense of calm and precision.  And his military service got Gunnar a comfortable retirement, including a place to live and three square meals a day: herring, butterfish, a tiny sardinelike fish called capelin and squid.  “He really liked squid,” Rebecca Miller said.  Rebecca met Gunnar in 2007, in her second year as an animal keeper at the National Zoo. Until his death Friday at age 38, Gunnar lived at the zoo’s Beaver Valley...
(The Washington Post)

Twitter Transformed Into a Barometer of Anxiety as Egypt Waited for Election Results. Since The Lede used Twitter on Sunday to report from Tahrir Square live as Mohamed Morsi was declared the winner of Egypt’s presidential election, readers might be unaware of just how tense the atmosphere was in the country’s capital before the dramatic announcement.  The public counting of votes on election night, a week earlier, had appeared to show that Mr. Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, had narrowly defeated his opponent, Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik...
(The Lede)

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I received an email yesterday from a producer looking for a story for a NPR program called "To the Best of Our Knowledge".

They are looking for someone who has served in the U.S. military to submit a short, moving story about intercultural miscommunication.

Naturally, given that bloggers like to write, I was contacted to see if any bloggers might be interested. 

Apparently, there is even a small payment available for the chosen essay, which the writer may be asked to read aloud.

If you have a story no longer than 700 words that you’d like to submit, you can send it to sara.nics@wpr.org.  The deadline is Monday, July 2nd.

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Famous military phonies. At the popular military blog This Ain’t Hell, retired Army Sergeant First Class Jonn Lilyea is doing his part to end stolen valor by publicly embarrassing phony heroes who are caught in the act.  “I kind of have a loud megaphone to broadcast this, and I present it in a unique way so I can point and laugh at them,” he told Human Events. “That’s why I think my blog is the public square for stolen valor...It reminds people of the idiots who are out there doing this.”  Lilyea said he receives four or five military fraud submissions per week from readers, from news articles to anonymous photographs. And each year, he has a bracket run-off so that his readers can choose the most infamous fraud.
(Human Events)

Military family thankful for Facebook, but happy for face-to-face. Tim Sheaffer was 7,000 miles away in defense of a nation and in a world of chaos when his daughter, Brooklyn, was born last November.  But thanks to social media, from a coffee shop in Afghanistan, he watched Brooklyn enter the world and the loving arms of his wife, Amanda.  "It was the best thing short of actually being there," said the 2008 Twinsburg High School graduate. "In a way it was sad, but at the same time I was so happy to get to be with Amanda during the birth."  Through Skype, he spoke with Amanda during her contractions as she brought their tiny bundle of innocence into being at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna...
(StowSentry.com)

Colorado Mother and Daughter Charged in Online Dating Scam With Fake Military Members. A mother and daughter in Colorado were indicted for their role in a "Nigerian internet romance scam" in which associates in Nigeria posed as members of the U.S. Armed Forces and stole over $1 million from 374 victims.  Tracy Vasseur, 40, and her mother, Karen Vasseur, 73, of Brighton, Colo., about 21 miles north of Denver, face a hearing on Tuesday in the Adams County District Court. The Colorado Attorney General, John Suthers, said the two were part of a scam since 2009 that "lured unsuspecting women to internet dating sites by posing as members of the U.S. military serving in Afghanistan...
(ABC News)

89-year-old World War II vet's bankruptcy case draws attention after eviction from Mont. home. A World War II veteran who lists a $981 monthly Social Security check as his only income has had to move out of his western Montana home after his late wife's medical bills led him to file for bankruptcy.  Warren Bodeker, 89, was ordered by a bankruptcy judge to leave the home that he and his wife built in Plains. His case has gone viral on the Internet after the group Oathkeepers posted a YouTube video featuring him and wrote a sympathetic account of his story on its website... 
(The Republic)

Ohio agencies team up to gather WWII era stories. Ohioans from the World War II era are being asked to share their memories of surviving the tumultuous 1940s in a project that state officials hope will provide valuable lessons for other generations.  The state’s departments of aging and veterans services have teamed up to produce the War Era Story Project, which is gathering personal recollections from Ohio’s WWII military veterans and civilians about their life during the war and through the recovery years ending the decade. While the project focuses on Ohioans’ recollections, it has sparked the interest of at least one national organization about the possibility of similar projects in other parts of the country... 
(The News-Herald)

Android Made More Secure for Army Grunts. Earlier today, Lifehacker ran down a few of the stupidest things that people do with their smartphones. The list includes distracted driving, relying on gadgets for everything, and ignoring real life people in favor of your iPhone (AAPL) or Blackberry (RIMM).  However, it might be the most easily forgotten item on the list that stands as the most important. Many of us fail to properly secure our smartphones, leaving private data vulnerable to thieves and snooping apps. A password and remote data wipe can help solve this problem.  Interestingly enough, issues of smartphone security have spread far past our country’s borders. For those defending America in the Middle East, secure smartphones can be a matter of crucial importance...
(Minyanville)

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This is truly terrible for the friends and family of Army Sgt. Sean P. Fennerty.   Sgt. Fennerty died Jan. 20 in Karma, Iraq, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near his vehicle.

While family and friends have had to endure his loss, the Pensacola News Journal is reporting that an internet scammer used photos of Sgt. Fennerty to try and raise money for an online fundraising campaign. 

The fraudulent campaign “solicited money to help with the recovery expenses of a purportedly wounded combat veteran named Chris Fennery”, but used the photo of Sgt. Fennerty.

PNJ was able to contact Sgt. Fennerty’s father.

According to PNJ:

 “Dr. Fennerty isn’t sure why the scammer picked Pensacola as the place to originate the Internet scam, but he has two theories: First, the scammer wanted to focus the appeal in a town far from Oregon where people wouldn’t readily recognize his son’s photograph. Second, Pensacola has so many residents with connections to the military who might be sympathetic to the supposed plight of a wounded soldier. 

But Fennerty said his memories of his son aren’t marred. 

“Sean died doing what he wanted to do, “ he said. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Full story here.

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I've never heard of self-proclaimed journalist Charles Davis, but he created a storm of controversy on Twitter after filling in the blank space of a tweet posted by the U.S. Army (@USArmy) on Friday.

On June 22, @USArmy (the official Twitter account of the U.S. Army) tweeted:

"Finish the Tweet: You know you're a #Soldier when _______."

Charles Davis then tweeted the following message back:

"You're statistically more likely to rape a colleague than defend freedom. RT @USArmy: Finish the Tweet: You know you’re a ‪#Soldier when ____"

He has a disgusting point of view and obviously has no facts.

And sadly, Davis’ tweet wasn’t the only negative one.  A quick search on Twitter turns up other anti-Army responses to the same tweet.

But on Twitter, you can expect a reaction from people by writing baseless comments like these.

As Examiner.com points out, "A post at Twitchy notes that Davis also retweeted a message referring to Vietnam veterans as baby-killers."

Twitchy.com has published some good media coverage regarding the tweet as well as several responses posted on Twitter.

And many people are upset, tweeting messages about Charles Davis like:

"What a douche."

"Im not gonna sugarcoat this....he needs to get his ass kicked"

"The Twitterverse saw what you wrote about the US Army being rapists, Chuck. And they will not be happy. Jerk."

Twitchy Staff ends the story fittingly by saying, "Charles, you aren’t fit to lick the boots of our military. You aren’t fit to call yourself a man."

Read more at Twitchy and Examiner.

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US ambassador taps Facebook to drive wedge between Syrian military and Assad. US ambassador taps Facebook to drive wedge between Syrian military and Assad. Now Ambassador Ford, holed up in Washington and relying on social media to continue getting his message out, is using Facebook to relay a stark warning to Syria’s armed forces: Stop carrying out President Bashar al-Assad’s dirty work for him, or risk finding yourself prosecuted for crimes against humanity.  “The officers and soldiers of the Syrian military have a choice to make,” Ford says in an entry on his Facebook page that he posted Wednesday. “Do they want to expose themselves to criminal prosecution by supporting the barbaric actions of the Assad regime against the Syrian people?”
(The Christian Science Monitor)

Troop Talk: Veteran shares stories of D-Day, World War II online. Twenty years ago, Aurora native Ed Peters started putting together a book of memorabilia from his experiences in World War II. By understanding the changing dynamics of learning through the different generations, he is sharing his book on the Internet for everyone to read.  Peters, former Navy seaman, was on the shores of Okinawa when the Allies invaded Japan on April 1, 1945. He served as a signal man for a Navy landing craft in the final battle of WWII. He wants to share his story with school children from Illinois...
(The Beacon-News)

MANning the Homefront links male military spouses. It has been said that spouses have the toughest job in the military. They support the military member and their children through frequent moves, long spans without their significant other due to deployments, and even learn a new language filled with acronyms, “hooahs” and the occasional “roger that.”  Military wives clubs have been around since the dawn of the military spouse, and have even evolved into “spouses clubs” to accommodate male military spouses. MANning the Homefront, however, is a group geared specifically toward male military spouses...
(Cap Flyer)

U.S. Military Hunts for Safe Smartphones for Soldiers.  The military has long needed computers that are tough enough on the outside to withstand the rough and tumble of the battlefield. Now, with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets in the hands of soldiers, those devices also have to be strong on the inside. They are loaded with contacts, location information and all kinds of military-grade applications, so it can be deadly for a soldier to lose a mobile device or have its data leak out unwittingly...
(The New York Times)

Photo’s Publication Leads a WWII Cover Girl to Tell Her Story. Seventy years after she was photographed working on a navy airplane, Irma Lee Smentek saw the photo on a magazine cover and decided to tell her World War II story of life, work, tragedy, and love. Her story appears in the August 2012 issue of America in WWII magazine.  The photo is a haunting image of America’s World War II home front: A lovely young woman in white overalls carefully paints a star on the wing of a navy plane. On the bib of her overalls are her photo ID badge and a winged star with the slogan “Keep ’Em Flying.”
(PRWeb)

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It’s never too late to join Facebook, right?

Yesterday, The Armed Forces of Malta announced that it officially launched its website ( www.afm.gov.mt ) and Facebook page ( www.facebook.com/ArmedForcesOfMaltaafm ).

According to a story in The Malta Independent Online, the sites were launched in order bring the army and its work closer to the public.

“During an event held at the Officers’ Mess at the Luqa Barracks, AFM Commander Brigadier Martin G. Xuereb described the launch of the website as a milestone and said that together with the Facebook page, it will serve as a means for the AFM to pass on its message in a faster and more efficient manner.

Lieutenant Keith Caruana – who recently took over from Major Ivan M. Consiglio as the officer in charge of the AFM’s public information cell, gave an overview of the website, saying it is “the image of the AFM in 2012.”

Among other things it features news, events, podcasts and videos, a photo gallery, and a great deal of interesting information about the force structure, the type of equipment that is used, the AFM’s history and its assets, as well as useful information for anyone interested in joining the force.”

As of today, the Facebook page has fewer than 300 Likes.

Here are some brief facts on the AFM (via Wikipedia)

The AFM was formed upon Malta becoming a republic in 1974.

The AFM is a brigade sized organisation.

Budget:  $60 million (2000 est.)

Full story here.

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The Los Angeles Film School to Host First-ever GI Film Festival Hollywood as Part of its 3rd Annual Salute.  The Los Angeles Film School (www.lafilm.edu), a creative arts college in Hollywood that offers students an immersive experience, world-class facilities and a supportive culture in preparation for a career in the entertainment business, today announced that it has teamed up with the GI Film Festival to host the first-ever Hollywood event in conjunction with its 3rd Annual Salute event honoring military servicemen and women.  The GI Film Festival, the first and only film festival in the country dedicated to honoring the successes and sacrifices of American GIs through the medium of film, is now accepting submissions for its Hollywood event to be held at the Los Angeles Film School campus on Saturday, November 10, 2012...
(PR Newswire)

Veterans Beat: Veterans encouraged to tell war stories.  Ohio Department of Aging Director Bonnie Kantor-Burman and Ohio Department of Veterans Service Director Thomas N. Moe announced on June 17 the launch of the departments' War Era Story Project. The effort will pick up where the Department of Aging's award-winning 2009 Great Depression Story Project by collecting Ohioans' memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s. The agencies are seeking stories by the people who lived them -- from veterans of World War II, to the men, women and children who held steady on the home front... 
(The-News-Leader)

The Egyptian Presidential Candidates on Social Media. Ahmed Shafik and Mohamed Morsi are two presidential candidates who have claimed victory in Egypt’s election, the results of which are expected Thursday. The process has been muddled by allegations of fraud and Constitutional Court rulings which consolidated power in the hands of the military, which has been ruling the country since the ouster of ex-President Hosnai Mubarak.  While officials sort out last week’s voting, both candidates have been making their case on Facebook and Twitter, as social media and the Internet have long been a hotbed of political activity in Egypt...
(Mashable)

Send us war stories, veteran photos for the Fourth of July. We are looking at doing another soldier-related project for the DNJ.  We are interested in tell your war story or hearing a retelling of a deceased loved one's service. We prefer the veterans have some sort of connection to Murfreesboro and Rutherford County.  So many military folks moved here for Sewart Air Force Base, and then stayed. While others went to war and came back home to Middle Tennessee.  These would be brief snippets on a soldier, with a photo, that we'd run the week of Fourth of July...
(The Daily News Journal)

Tom Eblen: Veterans' love stories, donations, sought for book. Jennifer Bryant was 16 when her grandmother died in 1991. As she helped her grandfather choose family photographs for the funeral visitation, she noticed a stack of small pictures and letters on the top of his dresser.  Kenneth and Dale Johnson were married for 46 years and raised three children in Webster County, where he worked as an underground coal miner. The small stack of correspondence represented much of their first two years of marriage, which they spent apart. He was an Army machine-gunner during World War II and fought on the front lines in Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge... 
(Kentucky.com)

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Over the years, I've written about now-former Army Captain Lee Kelley because of his many contributions to the world of military blogging.

Kelley started military blogging in 2005 and early on his writing was recognized by many.

A major milestone was reached in the milblogging community, when Kelley became one of many individuals selected as Time's Person of the Year in 2006.

"Kelley is a military blogger, or mil-blogger, one of at least 1,200 servicemen and -women who write about their lives online. So far his blog, Wordsmith At War, has logged more than 200,000 hits. Mil-bloggers are a different breed from the domestic blogger who keeps, say, a record of his cat's mood swings. Here's Kelley on driving in Ramadi: "You have to go around big potholes and chunks of concrete blocking part of the lane. It's not a good feeling, because all your training tells you that these are ideal sites for IEDs ... The threat is very real, and you can sense it in the air. You can't think 'it won't happen to us,' you have to assume it will. Yet we discuss it in the same tone we might talk about last night's football game."

Kelley, like  other notable bloggers, went beyond blogging.

His writing culminated into a book  in 2009 called Fire In The Night – Creative Essays From An Iraq War Vet.

“Already a freelance writer, Lee started a blog when he was sent to Iraq in 2005. His family and friends expected to read of his experiences, and a blog was the perfect medium. A hometown reporter visited his unit in Iraq, and Lee ended up on the front page of the Salt Lake Tribune. That's how it all began. Since then, he's been in the top 10 military blogs on milblogging.com for years, featured in TIME magazine, read some of his essays on radio shows, and even been on the local news in Salt Lake City, Utah. Through it all, readers have been very supportive of Lee's writing and he has received thousands of queries about when he might publish a book. Here are 53 of the most popular essays. They have been adapted from the blog, and writing that he's done in other forums, such as The New York Times and Doonesbury.com. All of the work in this book was either written while he was still in Iraq or as a direct result of his experiences there.”

In 2010, Kelley announced his highly acclaimed blog 'Wordsmith at War' would move away from its well-known web address after Blog-city, the platform used for publishing the site, announced it was closing its doors.

Kelley wrote in his last post on his original website:

“I began this blog five years ago when my Iraq deployment was only beginning, and the most chaotic years of my life were upon me. Last year I changed the name, because I'm out of the military and it just didn't feel like a military blog any longer. But this blog kept me sane when I was in Iraq, opened up so many opportunities, and brought so many incredible and supportive people into my life experience. Thank you for being one of them!

Blog-city is shutting its doors soon, so I'm moving The Glass Half Full Report over to my business website. Please update your favorites with the new web address, and check back often for new posts, updates about my writing projects, and general musings from the perspective of a devoted father, Iraq war vet, and professional writer. “

So what ever happened to Captain Lee Kelley?

We recently chatted over e-mail and he caught me up on his goings-on. 

While he isn’t blogging from the frontlines anymore and he has left the military, he is still very much involved with the military.

Kelley is now creating books and training for veterans.

He has co-authored a book with the president of a career management services company, called Roadmap to Job-Winning Military to Civilian Resumes.  The book teaches vets how to write their own military to federal, defense contractor, and corporate resumes.

Kelley is also involved in the development of online training and resources.  You can check out some of the links below to see what he’s been up to.

- First Steps for Vets: Know Your Options and Define Your Career Goals:
http://bit.ly/rLOA94
- Five Steps to Writing Strong Accomplishments:   
http://vetshq.kajabi.com/fe/17595-five-steps-to-writing-strong-accomplishments

In case you’re wondering, Kelley still blogs, only the subject matter is a bit different. He now posts over at the blog for CareerPro Global which can be found at:  http://veteranstransitionhq.wordpress.com

For those of you wondering about Kelley and his accomplishments, here are some more highlights:

Publications:

- New York Times Op-Ed Contributor (2006, 2007)
- Popular Military Blogger with over 20,000 readers each month (Wordsmith at War)
- Accomplished creative freelance writer/ editor (7 years)
- Featured in Dec. 2006 Time Magazine “People of the Year” issue
- Author of “Fire in the Night: Creative Essays from an Iraq War Vet” (honorable mention in - Writer’s Digest 18th Annual International Self-Published Book Award for non-fiction
- Author of “The Authorized biography of Brigadier General Richard E. Fisher (honorable mention in Military Writers Society of America’s 2010 Book of the Year Award for Biography)

Published in four anthologies:

- 2006 Writer’s Blog Anthology
- Blog of War (2007)
- Doonesbury.com’s The Sandbox (2008)
- War Is … (Sep . 2008)

Additional Career Highlights:

- Education: Bachelor of Arts in English/Creative Writing, University of New Orleans
- Former U.S. Army Public Affairs Representative
- Member, American Author’s Association
- Member, Military Writer’s Society of America
- Member, Career Director’s International
- 14 years in U.S. Army (culminating as Captain, Company Commander, U.S. Army Signal Corps)
- Iraq War Veteran (Jan. 2005 – June 2006), awarded Bronze Star for exemplary service
Served as Fire Support Specialist in 82nd Airborne Division and 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
- ROTC, University of Montana
- Former Communications Project Manager, Motorola

Readers:  If you’d like to learn more about other military bloggers and where they are now, drop me a line at milblogging@gmail.com





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Drew Brees says he meant no offense to military with his Tweet about weapons of mass destruction. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees on Monday evening threw a jab at the NFL for what he considered to be the lack of evidence the league presented at the appeals hearing for teammates Jonathan Vilma and Will Smith and former teammates Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove.  "If NFL fans were told there were "weapons of mass destruction" enough times, they'd believe it. But what happens when you don't find any????" Brees Tweeted.  On Tuesday afternoon the veteran quarterback and staunch supporter of the U.S. military posted two comments to his Twitter account - which has more than one million followers - apologizing if any members of the military took offense at his analogy comparing the league's allegation that the Saints ran a bounty program to the United States' fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a decade ago...
(nola.com)

U.S. Twitter war vs. Taliban flares.  The Twitter tiff: It’s a realm usually reserved for celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian.  On Sunday, though, Twitter yet again became a field in the battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan. In the latest flareup in an ongoing social-media campaign, coalition forces engaged the Taliban in a war of words, delivered 140 characters at a time.  It all began when a pro-Taliban Twitter feed boasted that a recent roadside bombing had killed eight coalition troops.  Lt. Col. Stewart Upton, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command Southwest, was quick to debunk the claim. He tweeted: “Wow! 8 killed, don’t you think there would be some type of announcement from ISAF? how was your poppy harvest?”
(Politico)

American Homecomings: Telling war veterans’ stories. “The stars.” Tim Kenney doesn’t miss a beat when asked if there was anything good he saw in Afghanistan. The stars made him feel close to his God - and close to his family.  But that emotional connection would be broken when Tim came home at the end of April, 2011. He was physically disabled by hits from roadside explosive devices and mentally in shock from what he had seen and done.  You can read more about Tim Kenney and how he learned to bridge the chasm created when the father and husband who goes to war comes home a changed man with a family that needs him at AmericanHomecomings.com. Kenney is one of eight veterans telling their stories on   AmericanHomecomings.com   where you can find the stories of other veterans and how they are rebuilding their lives after the military, news, blogs, resources for veterans and a place to share your own story...
(The Denver Post)

Myanmar Journalists Win Battles, But War Not Over. These are heady days in Myanmar's newsrooms, many of them staffed by young women like those at Kumudra newspaper nicknamed after "Charlie's Angels" for their tenacity in holding the military-dominated government to account. Reporters and editors are suddenly enjoying remarkable press freedom, as the country's new, nominally civilian government launches a rapid succession of reforms, but they also fear they may be inadequately prepared as they enter uncharted, potentially hazardous territory.  The country's mushrooming media is poised at the crossroads. Media censorship is due to end this month. But journalists fret that the censorship may be replaced by new kinds of repression, including crackdowns — after the fact — over stories that previously would simply never have been published... 
(NPR)

A Veteran's Story: WWII medic recalls South Pacific. Merle Reed is over 90 now and willing to recall some, if not all, of the war in the South Pacific.  A native of the central Pennsylvania coal fields, Reed and three of his brothers served during World War II.  "When I went in, I was listed as a 'non-combatant' due to a problem with my right eye," he said.  So he was trained as a medic specializing in X-ray operation. But mostly he collected the dead and wounded and had to help determine which men were too injured to survive.  "That job was the source of many lifelong nightmares," his wife, Phyllis, said...
(Mansfield News Journal)

Military Rape Documentary 'Invisible War' Leads to Policy Changes Before Its Opening. The Invisible War," a devastating documentary about the tens of thousands of sexual assaults that take place within the U.S. military every year, has already had an effect on policy even before its release on Friday.  Within days of seeing the film in April, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced a crucial change in the way in which reported rapes will be investigated in the military – and he told one of the film's executive producers that the screening was partly responsible for his decision.  Last week, a major general who appears in the film as a defender of the way the military has handled the cases – and who in the process appeared to be a rather clueless apologist for a badly broken system – was replaced...
(The Wrap)

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Earlier this week, I received a message from Tom Sileo, editor of The Unknown Soldiers blog. 

"Linda Mills, wife of Army Staff Sgt. Andrew Mills, is the author of a blog called "One Percent" -- http://onepercentarmy.blogspot.com.  She contacted me back in April, and I subsequently wrote a newspaper column about her experience as an Army wife with a husband deployed to Afghanistan: http://www.unknownsoldiersblog.com/2012/05/one-percent.html

Sadly, Staff Sgt. Mills sustained serious wounds to his legs and abdomen in a June 7 twin IED attack that killed one soldier and wounded at least eight more.  According to what Linda has shared with me, Drew and a fellow soldier were evacuating their fallen comrade when a second IED exploded."

Tom has written a heartfelt post about Linda and Andrew and the day she received the news he was injured in an IED attack.

“Less than two months after our interview, Linda, the wife of deployed U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Andrew Mills, was picking up dinner at a local Pizza Hut near North Carolina's Fort Bragg. She was planning a fun Thursday evening with some girlfriends, as was customary while their husbands were deployed to Afghanistan.

As the cheery, blonde-haired military spouse drove home in a car filled with the smell of fresh pizza, a call came in on her cell phone from a strange number. As she answered tepidly, a sinking feeling filled her stomach.

"Your husband has been seriously wounded in Afghanistan," a solemn voice on the other end of the line said. "That is all the information we have at this time."

On June 7, Staff Sgt. Mills, 27, alongside at least eight fellow soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division's 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, were wounded in twin explosions in Afghanistan's Kandahar Province. Pfc. Brandon Goodine, 20, of Luthersville, Ga., was tragically killed in the attack.”

You can read the entire story here called, "They're Not Toy Soldiers".

At the end of Tom's e-mail to me, he finished off his message saying, "While as you know, there is a long road ahead for them and all the other soldiers and families affected by this attack, especially the loved ones of fallen Pfc. Brandon Goodine, I'm sure the milblogging community will unite around them.  I just thought I'd share this story of Linda, a truly courageous milblogger, with you."

Linda's blog can be found here.

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Scot launches world's biggest war memorial on internet. HEY are soldiers, sailors and airmen who died serving their country, some hundreds of years apart but whose stories sit alongside side each other in the world’s biggest war memorial.  From the lost soldiers of Vietnam to US troops who died in Afghanistan, the online roll of honour created by Scots engineer Brian Foster has been opened for the first time for the public to see.  More than 100,000 US servicemen and women appear in the poignant and often uplifting tributes by family and friends accompanied by pictures – many taken on the front line.  Brian, from Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, used his own money to set up a Facebook for the Forces site 10 years ago called TogetherWeServed.com after working alongside the US military for many years...
(The Daily Record) 

Drones, Computers New Weapons Of US Shadow Wars. After a decade of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American way of war is evolving toward less brawn, more guile.  Drone aircraft spy on and attack terrorists with no pilot in harm's way. Small teams of special operations troops quietly train and advise foreign forces. Viruses sent from computers to foreign networks strike silently, with no American fingerprint.  It's war in the shadows, with the U.S. public largely in the dark...
(NPR)

Waterloo veteran shares story of his return to Iwo Jima 67 years after WWII. World War II veteran David Greene is among a dwindling number of survivors of the Battle of Iwo Jima. A few months ago, the Waterloo native returned to the island -- along with nine other veterans and a group of history students.  This weekend, he is sharing his experiences at Waterloo's Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum.  It doesn't take much to get Greene talking about world war two, and more specifically, about Iwo Jima. He makes it a priority to speak with young people at schools, events, or in small groups.
 (KWWL.com)

Harbor Beach son tells father’s war story. When Tom Glide of Harbor Beach was growing up, he and his siblings knew that their father, Jack Glide, had been a prisoner during World War II. His dad was pretty closed-mouthed about his experiences, and the Glide family simply lived their lives. It wasn’t until after the elder Mr. Glide died that Tom became aware of what his father endured during the war. Now he is sharing those experiences in a book titled “Fortresses, an Airman’s Story of Survival.”  (Huron Daily Tribune)

Veterans recall war stories for national history project. Del Mar College Professor John Detmer joined the Marines in 1966 against his father's wishes just two semesters short of graduating from college.  His father, a senior master sergeant with the Air Force, thought it was unwise not to finish school first. He also thought the Marines wasn't the right fit, Detmer said.  "My father said why not the Air Force and I said the Air Force is too much like a civilian job, and I wanted to go where the action is," Detmer said...
(Corpus Christi Caller-Times)

RIM targets Singapore's military servicemen with camera-less smartphone. If RIM is failing to catch they eyes of  regular consumers, then perhaps they should go after a more specific group of people.  RIM has launched a camera-less BlackBerry Curve 9360 aimed at restoring the social life of Singapore’s young people of the armed forces...
(VR-Zone)

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Just in case you were wondering what the social media policy is with the Nigerian Army, its peacekeeping soldiers have been ordered to stop using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networks during peacekeeping missions as the Army fears it might compromise security, reports the Nigeria Tribune.

Nigerian scam emails aside, the Nigerian Armed Forces is a major contributor to peacekeeping missions with the United Nations.

Full story here.

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In case you thought this story was over, Fox News is reporting that the woman who orchestrated the controversial photos of military moms breast-feeding their kids in uniform has been fired from her civilian job as an X-ray technician. 

In the same news report, Fox said both women in the picture have also been reprimanded by the Air Force for violating a rule, which, fun fact, states that military uniforms cannot be used to promote a product or cause.

And yes, I did crop the above Mom2Mom photo.

Click here to see the full pic via Air Force Times.

I’m sure this will not be the end of this story.

Full Fox New story here.

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World War II-era stories sought for new project. A new project launched by the Ohio Department of Aging and Ohio Department of Veterans Services seeks Ohio residents' experiences during World War II.  ODA Director Bonnie Kantor-Burman and Veterans Services Director Thomas Moe this week announced the launch of the departments' joint War Era Story Project, an effort that will pick up where the Department of Aging's award-winning 2009 Great Depression Story Project left off by collecting Ohioans' memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s...
(ChillicotheGazette)

Internet users unload anger on social media sites. Bitter enmity at the heart of communal unrest in western Burma has spilled online, with incendiary posts on social media sites reflecting deep-rooted hostilities in the region, experts said.  Several days of deadly sectarian violence have seen the government declare a state of emergency in Arakan state and talk of the clashes has lit up social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook...
(DVB)

Smithsonian explores the War of 1812 with new exhibit. The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery is opening a major exhibit on the War of 1812 with objects from Canada, Great Britain and the United States.  On Friday, the museum opens "1812: A Nation Emerges." It comes almost 200 years to the day from the nation's declaration of war against the British Empire. This "forgotten war" eventually led to the burning of the White House...
(Canada.com)

Coalition soldiers tap into smartphone technology to help allies. From the green of Southern Indiana farmland to the sands of the Afghan desert, coalition soldiers from around the world are tapping smartphone technology to become better-trained war fighters. "The premise is pretty simple: if we're going to fight with our allies in a coalition, then we should develop our capabilities as a coalition, test them as a coalition before we get to the fight," said U.S. Joint Staff Operational Manager John Miller...
(FOX59)

Space-A details now available on Facebook.  Catching space-available flights around the world should be a little easier for military travelers this summer if they use Facebook. Air Mobility Command earlier this year began posting daily flight information for 22 bases in Europe, Asia and the U.S., including the number of seats available and the category and number of travelers signed up for the various flights...
(Stars and Stripes)

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Not gonna lie, if I saw this aircraft rolling down Main Street on a flat bed truck, I may have thought the same thing.

Apparently, people spotted this UFO in the DC-area and the information quickly spread on Twitter and Facebook.

Anyway, it turns out the so-called UFO is nothing more than the X-47B, an unmanned military aircraft.

You can take off the foil hat now.

The same thing happened in 2011, only in Kansas.

You can watch the video here on Military.com from back then.

Image credit: JulieeLondon

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War Era Project to feature personal stories from 1940s. Two state agencies have joined forces on a project to collect personal stories from the people who lived through the years of World War II. Ohio Department of Aging Director Bonnie Kantor-Burman and Ohio Department of Veterans Services Director Thomas N. Mio began the joint effort titled, “War Era Story Project.”  Kantor-Burman said the effort will resume where the Department of Aging’s “Great Depression Story Project” left off in 2009 to collect memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s...
(The Morning Journal)

State collects WWII stories. The Ohio Department of Aging and Ohio Department of Veterans Services are sponsoring a joint War Era Story Project. It is designed to pick up where the 2009 Department of Aging’s Great Depression Story Project left off by collecting Ohioans’ memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s. The agencies are seeking stories by the people who lived them – from veterans of World War II, to the men, women and children at home...
(Cincinnati)

Stories from a war zone. HE disguised himself to flee the Taliban, escaped Pakistan on a fake passport, survived a boat journey to Australia and spent time at Woomera detention centre.  Now, Najaf Mazari is coming to Altona to tell his incredible story as captured in his bestselling book The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif.  His talk is part of Refugee Week (June 17-23) whose theme this year is 'restoring hope'.  Mr Mazari lost his father at age eight and half of his family in tribal conflict and warfare in Afghanistan...
(Wyndham Weekly)

Stories will remember WWII veterans.  Bill Phoennik, 90, remembers hearing the planes fly overhead in the darkness the night before the Normandy Invasion that began June 6, 1944. He was a young soldier in the U.S. Army stationed in England. A month after the invasion, Phoennik found himself in France helping to transport heavy equipment. He considers himself lucky as he was not wounded during the 13 months he and his fellow soldiers spent in France... 
(The Almanac)

Danville Man Compiles Years Of Civil War Research. What started with an interest in history has led a Danville man through more than a decade's worth of research on the Danville National Cemetery, a burial ground for Union soldiers.  Stuart Martin says it began when he was a child. He would pass the perfectly manicured rows of white, marble headstones and stare in awe. Today, he knows everything - every little detail about more than 1,200 of them. Ask him about one headstone, and he'll give you the life story of a soldier.  "Morgan and Gilbert Presley are brothers, they were in the eighth Tennessee cavalry," said Martin while glancing at a headstone...
(WSET)

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By now, you may have seen this news all over the web. 

Yesterday, the Associated Press ran a story about The Museum of the Confederacy located in Richmond, Virginia, and its efforts at solving the mystery of unidentified photographs in its collection.

According to the LA Times, the story, "was passed along repeatedly in social media circles throughout the day via Tweets, Facebook "likes," blog postings, news reports and more. On Yahoo News alone, the story was "liked" nearly 2,000 times and had more than 1,700 comments."

The three photos above are currently displayed on the museum's website, but it’s the photographs of the little girls drawing the most attention after being featured in the AP story.

The AP writes, “The photograph of one girl was found between the bodies of two soldiers — one Union, one Confederate, at Port Royal, Va., 150 years ago this June. The other was retrieved from a slain Union soldier's haversack in 1865 on a Virginia farm field days before a half-decade of blood-letting would end with a surrender signed not far away at Appomattox.”

Can you help solve the mystery?

The museum asks that if you think you can identify anyone in the photos please contact the Museum at 855-649-1861 x113 or by email (samcraghead -at- moc.org)

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Mum’s book keeps memory of soldier son alive. “If I keep talking and writing about him, he still stays alive.”  These are the words of Helena Tym, whose 19-year-old son Cyrus Thatcher was killed by a roadside bomb while he was on patrol in Afghanistan.  Saturday, June 2, when the Union Flags went out for the Diamond Jubilee, was the third anniversary of his death.  It was also the day Ms Tym’s book, ‘Chin Up, Head Down’, was published. Subtitled ‘A mother’s journey of madness and grief’ it is the story of the Caversham family since they were given the dreadful news in 2009...
(getreading)

A National Security Blog From Wired Widens Its Reach. Wired, a magazine that celebrates nerdiness with cover pieces like “How to be a Geek Dad,” has found a different audience of readers who are not coming from the programming circles of Silicon Valley. They are technology enthusiasts spread across military bases and mazelike corridors at the Pentagon.  In the five years since Wired.com started its Danger Room blog, it has attracted a steady following in the national security community. The blog has 35,094 Twitter followers, makes up 10 percent of the traffic on Wired.com, and has broken stories as geeky and alarming as the one on a virus spreading through drone cockpits and “burn pit” trash disposal exposure in Afghanistan. Danger Room appears to be reaching readers the military sometimes has trouble connecting with in its own ranks...
(New York Times)

Facebook Group Helps Military Parents. Our military families put their country's needs ahead of their own, and when children are involved, the sacrifice is even greater.  Now one military family getting adjusted in a new Killeen home is finding finding some extra support on Facebook.  "They're real true Army brats, they've never stayed at a school for a full year," Tarah Roberts says about 11-year old Cole and 7-year old Star.  They've Gone to a different school every year since kindergarten...
(KCENTV)

Myanmar Clashes Spur Web Use, Crackdown. An outbreak of sectarian violence in western Myanmar is helping nudge this once-reclusive country further into the Internet age as people take to the Web to condemn the clashes and help organize street protests of their own, creating a new set of challenges for the country's military-backed government.  President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in Rakhine state near Bangladesh in a televised address Sunday, effectively enabling military control of the area after unrest claimed at least 17 lives in recent days, according to state media...
(Wall Street Journal)

E-mail scam targets Department of Defense employees. New York Defense Department personnel, beware: The IRS is warning of an e-mail identity-theft scam that seeks sensitive financial information by falsely claiming recipients could be in line for additional compensation.  Department of Defense military members, civilian employees and DOD retirees are being targeted in a phishing scam under the bogus banner of the Defense Finance and Accounting Services -- complete with a ".mil" e-mail address.  The message suggests those currently getting disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs could receive additional funds from the Internal Revenue Service, said IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunder...
(silive.com)

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