SMASH of the Indepundit tips us off to one of the best reviews of The Blog of War yet written, this from Bill McDonald of the Military Writers Society of America.

They give us Five Stars, and names TBOW Winner of the 2006 Gold Medal Award for Anthologies!

On a less pleasant note, SMASH also notes the re-emergence of one-man Anti-MILBLOG Campaigner, Kevin O’Meara, former Army Captain and anti-everything blogger at Command T.O.C. (Any “military” who insist on placing periods in everyday acronyms can’t be too military minded, in my view. Forget the link.)

Kevin’s basic beef starts with the fact that, generally speaking, MILBLOGGERS are Pro-Victory, supportive of the war in Iraq and the Global War on Terror, and absolutely proud and patriotic Americans. Apparently, he was in the IRR, Lord knows why he was ever in the military given his hatred of it, and was called back to duty.

Anyone who ever signed an enlistment contract knows that can happen. A Bummer. But hardly worth turning yourself into the hateful caricature Kevin’s made of himself.

Lately, Kevin’s big shtick is that all us MILBLOGGERS are censored by the Government. That we submit everything for review. That we can’t speak out minds. I can’t say it better than SMASH, with whom I totally agree based on first hand experience (me and other MILBLOGGERS):

Without any guidance from above, I did what any good officer would: I came up with my own set of rules, a little bit more stringent than those already in place for other forms of communication. Over time, I distilled these rules down to what I call the Golden Rule of MilBlogging:

Write every post as if you expect it to be read by the enemy, your commanding officer, and your mother.

Following this simple rule allowed me to convey to the people back home how it felt to be living and working in the Sandbox without endangering my men, running afoul of my command, or embarrassing my family. So to be fair to Kevin, you could say that I was censored, by myself.

Like SMASH, the only “censoring” that took place was when I withheld events or details that would jeopardize operational security (OPSEC), or cause family and friends back home undue pain, fear or upset. My Commander knew I blogged, he read occasionally, but as a moderate to left-leaning on social issues Democrat, he didn’t care for my style of politics. He only cared whether I followed the rules about OPSEC, and otherwise appreciated many of my wartime pieces.

By way of background, I’ve blogged about OPSEC and the DoD blogging policy here, here, and even earlier here.

Like SMASH said, there’s always one guy…