Yesterday I “live blogged” for the first time, posting from the 2007 Milblogging Conference in Arlington, Virginia (more or less Washington, DC).  I posted during the fourth panel, the one that asked what it meant to really support the troops.  The moderator for that one was Chuck Z., who told a very moving story at lunch (thanks for the great chow, Soldier’s Angels!) about his journey back to his family after he was hit by an IED in Iraq.  I’m sure Chuck has related the tale hundreds of times, but I wish every American could hear him tell it, in person, from beginning to end.

Chuck’s lunchtime presentation was just one of the many elements that made the Milblog conference worth attending.  As you saw from my post on Thursday (May 3), I had my concerns about the event beforehand.  My experience last year wasn’t entirely pleasant (and I was only there for half the day on Saturday).  Although I’ve blogged for a few years now here at wardcarroll.com, I don’t really consider myself a milblogger.  (And a quick run through my archives should validate that idea.)

But about halfway through the opening reception on Friday night, I realized that my concerns — whatever they were — were unwarranted.  The energy among the bloggers was wholly positive and without pretense.  Everybody seemed to know everybody else.  And what was even more impressive was everybody seemed familiar with everybody else’s body of milblogging work.

I ran into Neptunus Lex, who I’ve read for some time without realizing that he was an Annapolis classmate of mine.  (Lex blogs semi-anonymously, obviously.) And I caught up with Pinch, fellow former Tomcat RIO who occasionally contributes to Defense Tech.

Danger Room’s Noah Shachtman (former editor of Defense Tech) was there, which was great on many levels.  The greatest for me, personally, was that seeing him in person for the first time in many months (last time was in San Francisco during one of my monthly trips to Military.com’s corporate offices) allowed us to clear the funk that had developed between us during his departure from DT.  I’m a huge fan of Noah and his work, and we’re kindred spirits, so it never felt right that a couple of minor misunderstandings and bad rumors would force us to opposite corners, as it were.  Anyway, that’s old news now, fortunately.  Noah remains the man and one of the coolest guys I know.

Speaking of Noah, he was on the second panel on Saturday and during his remarks he allowed that he was a member of the MSM and, as such, attempted to explain the average reporter’s motivation.  A quick pass through the blogosphere (including comments sections) this morning showed that milbloggers and their comments writers didn’t quite get the nuance of what he was trying to say.

In spite of the fact that Noah sort of set himself up, it’s beyond ironic that he should be painted with the MSM brush by the milblogging community.  Noah is a blogging pioneer and one of the most tech-savvy folks I know.  He’s also the kind of guy who knows things - bands, pop trends, military R&D developments - before anyone else.  And as I said during my opening remarks at the conference, the sort of reporting he does (like during the most recent Army opsec flail) is a discriminator between blogs and MSM.  As he proved last week, he’s capable of working seams like no one else, blogger or whatever.

I was also able to spend some time with John Noonan of Op-for.  John’s got a heart of gold and a great sense of humor.  He wow’d us at an after-hours gathering on Friday night with stories of his life as an Air Force missile officer - a world completely foreign to me.

Other notable folks I ran into over the course of two days were embed blogger supreme Bill Roggio, who’s the kind of guy I could listen to for hours (and there aren’t too many of those on the planet), Matt Burden of Blackfive, who’s as close to a rockstar (for good reason) as the milbloggisphere has created so far, Military.com contributor David Axe, and the one-and-only Rachelle Jones of SpouseBUZZ.  (SpouseBUZZ LIVE! 2 takes place in San Diego next weekend, by the way.  If you’re a military spouse anywhere close to the area you’re going to want to check it out.)  And of course, my man Christian Lowe, managing editor of Military.com’s news section and editor of Defense Tech, was on the case for the duration.

As I allowed in my live blog post, the Milblog Conference was a special event, one that was both fun and mattered.  And if the community grows as much in the next 12 months as it has in the last, a lot more than just the MSM needs to watch out.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.