Greyhawk posting at MILBLOGS laments a certain irony of our extended discussion over MILBLOGGING and OPSEC:

Joke of the Week

You know the funny thing about the whole "Pentagon Silencing MilBlogs" thing? Nobody actually reads blogs from deployed troops. Check the site meters for any of them and you'll see what I mean. Even funnier, when all the brou-hah-ha was raging, no one, and by that I mean no one, linked or quoted any of them on the issue. (This is because no one actually reads them, including those who were the most outraged about them being "shut down".) The Mrs had a nice collection on the Dawn Patrol the other day, for the 4 or 5 folks who might actually give a damn.

I suppose part of that lack of readers could be due to the folks at milblogging.com ripping off the deployed guys via their rss feeds, but no one reads milblogging.com either.

Now I don’t know if Greyhawk’s in the same kind of “Table in Damascus” funk as CDR Salamander, nor am I privy to traffic stats, but he certainly got me thinking.

I don’t take the time often enough to read MILBLOGS, let alone those who are “in the sandbox.” That’s not right.

So based on Greyhawk’s lament (that should be a euphemism or something, here’s a quick sample from today’s Via Dawn Patrol, pulled together by Mrs. G…

Heavy hands…
American Soldier says,
The wounds revealed and the stories that go along with it. The many reasons behind our flag are vast. For most the comprehension of what is given in order to preserve freedom is unimaginable. The loss of life. The failed marriages. The absolute horror to see your friend choke on his own blood. The sound that never leaves when he begs to just not die. You sit there and hold his hand and help him die slowly, you are helpless. Those final moments that will never escape you. The war and its many stories will never ever be told. The new regulations may and will prevent that. I will not allow that to ever happen to me. I will lose every bit of rank that I ever earn to ensure that we never forget ‘why’ we fight and what struggles we have within this fight. It is a good fight! Regulation or not, the stories about my fallen brothers will be told.
(snip)
Forgive us of our trespasses and grant us the strength to live through the lone road that is called life. Some were not given that privilege. They gave their life for what they believed in. I have seen honor in its rawest form.
Support your soldier, not by bringing them home but allowing them to finish what we have started. If we leave in vane or for a political belief, then all that has been sacrificed will be shamed.

Desert Flier
Déjà vu, Monsieur

Blood arrives. Eric and I both grab one along with blood tubing. "Just keep the blood coming, and we are activating the blood bank as of now. Make it happen". The Army moves lightening fast, the Big Voice is calling out basewide for donors, and we have life saving whole blood in what seems to be minutes. The whole blood is a huge score for the patient: we are now giving him warm oxygen-carrying hemoglobin along with replacing the clotting factors he is losing to his injuries. Martin resects the patient's left lung: the round went right through it. Arterial line placed and Martin finishes damage control and is satisfied he stopped all of the thorasic bleeding. He starts closing the chest back up and places two new chest tubes to drain any residual blood. Blood chemistry and hematocrit counts are almost perfect despite the significant losses of the patient's own volume. Another save.
(snip)Sensory deprived moments: Strapped into my jump seat sandwiched between the crew chief and flight medic as the turning rotors rock me into a rhythmic trance after hours of trauma, surgery, and flying. The cabin feels like a miniature furnace late into the night. Smelling the requisite aroma of hot engine exhaust, hydraulic fluid, and a dozen other lubricants, propellants, etc. But this is a dedicated patient evacuation helicopter, so take the normal industrial smells and add a mixture of flight suits soaked in sweat, the patient, and the faint metallic smell of blood, old and fresh. A smell I will not soon forget........

I did make use of the listings at Milblogging.com to see if there were any new deployed milbloggers I hadn’t heard about. There were some, though not many, and I note that a lot of milbloggers now stateside are shown as deployed, and vice versa, and several show dead links. Not sure if some have been pulled offline just recently, or if they have just fallen into disuse. I’ll have to ask JP about updates…

Labels: MILBLOGS