The power of first-hand perspective

I just stumbled across a great blog from a soldier currently serving in Baghdad. His optimism and idealism are a welcome sight for me. Hopefully there are enough other young, motivated soldiers with a knack for building rapport with Iraqis out there to continue the slow advance toward stability.

I continue to be amazed by the changes technology has wrought on the face of war. We are hearing/reading first-hand experiences from soldiers on the ground - unfiltered by media bias (one way or the other...) and generally free of military censorship.

Although I know the military establishment tends to look at blogs warily, I think leaders would be wise to see the benefit of well-written accounts from soldiers on the ground. Both official military press releases and MSM reports from the ITO are viewed with a great degree of skepticism (often rightly so...) from those watching this war from afar. Accounts like this, when combined with a wide enough pool of other, similar reports offer a sort of ground truth that can never be captured by official media sources and are the true strength of the 'blogosphere.'

Tags:

War blogging
New media