Great stuff from military bloggers

H/T to deadissue for pointing out some of the great work by these military bloggers. It's no doubt that soliders like this, exposing the realities of the occupation of Iraq, are the ones targeted for censureship.

The soldier blogger at Burst Asunder is Segreant Justin Thompson. He is a soldier who was supposed to get out quite some time ago, June of 2006. He was "involuntarily extended" (stop lossed) and deployed for a 15 month deployment the day after he was supposed to be discharged.

He writes some powerful stuff...,

After two tours in Iraq, a "hero" is the last thing I'd call myself. When you kick open an Iraqi's door in the middle of the night, wake up a family, watch the children cry and listen to the women scream, the last word that goes through your head is "hero." When you arrest the family's father because he's a suspected IED maker, who you know is most likely innocent, and hand him to the Iraqi Army who will beat a confession out of him, "hero" isn't as accurate as "state-sponsored terrorist." When the streets are flooded as far as you can see with protesters demanding that the United States end it's operations in Iraq, you don't exactly feel like you're "liberating" anyone.

As Al reported at deadissue, his stuff about the Iraqi Army is moving as well.

We went from house to house with similar results. There were many quarrels between the people of the neighboorhood and the Iraqi Army. I came to find out that we were in a Sunni neighborhood and that the Iraqi Army was mostly Shiite. As we walked from house to house, the IA guys would periodically point their weapons at people and yell at them. When we entered a house, the IA guys had no respect for their belongings. All day there were reports of IA personnel stealing from the people and being violent. It seemed as though they were "casing" the houses for a later visit to the neighborhood. All of us could feel it. It was very uncomfortable.

I encourage everyone to read the stuff at Burst Asunder, its some really great work!

Another great military blog I have come across, again, thanks to Al at deadissue, is Army of Dude.

Let me give you a little backround if I haven't already. I joined the Army out of half patriotism, half desperation in 2004. I was still angry about September 11 and I totally fucked up school. I barely made it out of there with a diploma, and I knew it was because I had no discipline or direction. I thought the Army would be a magic bullet for all of those problems. The war was going on for a year when I joined, and I thought it was just and right at the time. Flash forward to 2007, and please, let's be grownups now. There were no weapons of mass destruction found, reason one. Reason two, the connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, which is largely unfounded. So why did we attack Iraq in response to September 11? It was like getting stung by a bee in your house and responding by going outside and kicking over an anthill.


I promise you all, there's no method to the madness. I put my life on hold for another four months for nothing. Can you imagine? I know soldiers fighting in previous wars had it a lot tougher. Kurt Vonnegut had it tougher in World War II. But at the very least, they had a goal, a promise of a bright new world free of Nazism. Brave men literally fought for freedom, because if they didn't, the world was going to be in the hands of Germany and Japan. That was the light at the end of their tunnel. Do you know what the light at the end of the tunnel is for us?

These are some of the best blog posts I have read from soldiers in Iraq. We'll keep tabs on these blogs and see what the impact of the ban on military bloggers has on these and other military blogs.

These two sites tell a story that the mainstream media in the US fails to discuss. Let their voices be heard!