Tag Archives: A Soldier’s Perspective

Milblogs go silent

The case of Army Master Sergeant and milblogger C.J. Grisham doesn’t surprise me. He’s in a public dispute with his child’s public school in Huntsville, AL, and his command has failed to back him. They were already irritated at his public criticism of Barry’s presidential fitness and needling of the Democrat Party.

The Army is a top-down organization and active-duty milbloggers like Grisham walk a fine line between free speech and insubordination. Tits on a boar, I say. If the Army wanted soldiers to have blogs, they’d be issued them. But other milbloggers disagree and they have gone silent through Friday to protest Grisham’s situation, which is extensively explained here. Whatever they say in public, I’m sure that’s what the Army would prefer active-duty milbloggers do: Go silent. Permanently.

Milblog bites the dust

"Blogging is no longer worth the trouble. Everything is fine as long as the stories are happy and positive. The military wants happy stories, not honest stories. Everything must be 100% in concert with the Army spin."

Sounds like the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre. The writer, a career NCO who went by the initials C.J., was finally done in by the Huntsville (AL) Board of Education, the lowest form of American representative government and often the most venal. The principal of the board’s Williams Middle School complained to the Army when C.J. got uppity about his children’s education and blogged about it. But, let’s face it, most independent bloggers must either remain anonymous or retire before using their real name. Free speech has never been free, unless, as C.J. says, "the stories are happy and positive."