MCB: Yeah, it runs the gamut. I was at a book-signing on Sunday and had a World War II vet come up to me and say he read the book and that — I have a chapter about nurses, medics, doctors, chaplains — that chapter was really powerful for him. From the military we’ve gotten a very positive response, but I’ve had some friends who aren’t going to read it, since it’s still too close to home, it’s too emotional, and I understand that. It’s a very emotional book.

PM: Since there are only so many reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they can only cover so much, what do you think the milbloggers bring to the coverage of the war? Is it just a personal perspective, or do you see their work informing the mainstream media’s coverage somehow?

MCB: I was just at the Military Reporters & Editors association conference in Chicago, and I got to meet some people there. I’ve been frequently critical of the media’s war coverage, particularly the mainstream stuff. You get a lot of great stories from local papers, and they do the “local boy or girl does good,” or “someone paid the price with their life,” and they’ll tell the story of that, but I think in terms of what the military blogs offer, there’s a couple things.

One is, it’s a direct, first-hand experience. Sure, the embed has first-hand experience, but they’re not doing the fighting. The other aspect is that you hear all the time that our society is disconnected from the war, that not enough rich people are involved in the war, not enough educated people are involved in the war, which is complete BS. But the blogs themselves serve as an outlet. People check in every day, and people can connect with people who are doing the fighting. I think as the blogs disappear — and there aren’t very many combat experience blogs left - you’re going to begin to see even more of a disconnect.

PM: Since the military is cracking down on blogs written by active duty service members, is there any move on the part of military bloggers — either active duty or civilian — to work within the chain of command to find a middle ground?

MCB: In terms of intelligence capability, they [the Pentagon] really need to have a unit that is established in that kind of media, because it’s going to evolve. One of the things we’re looking at is trying to take the rules for embeds — which have OpSec in mind — and marrying up some rules [for military bloggers] and dealing with it. We’re going to run it by some military lawyers and see what they think. And a lot of this is being run by people I can’t talk about because they’re on active duty, but we’re taking a look at it and seeing if we can influence it. There’s been times when bloggers have been pretty successful at influencing what’s going on, and there’s been times when we haven’t, but we’re going to give it a shot, and see what happens, because I think it’s really important that we keep America connected with what’s happening and give a voice to the soldier in this war.

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