The rise of milblogging has as much to do with the national dialectic as it does the technology that made it possible to be conducted via the Internet. Why have warfighters, veterans, military spouses, and others with military affinity been increasingly compelled to “enter the fray” via blogging as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have worn on? Well, because they could, for one thing. But beyond that they blogged because they had to.
They had to because traditional media was getting it wrong more often than not. They had to because partisan bickering had nothing to do with the well-being of those in harm’s way (or mission success). They had to because the American public was by-in-large detached from the small segment of the population that was doing their bidding in hostile lands.
And milbloggers were successful. Through their dogged, almost obdurate, presentation of first-person narratives they first got the attention of their own — which was no small feat in itself. Then they got the attention of the American public. Then they got the attention of traditional media, whose members treated milblogging as a curiosity or a lark until bloggers like Micheal Yon, Matt Burden, and Bill Roggio showed them they didn’t have a monopoly on capturing the stories of war. And once they got the attention of traditional media they got the attention of the Department of Defense and the Bush administration.
Milbloggers were the first to suggest the Surge might work, that Dragonskin body armor wasn’t everything the manufacturer claimed it was, and that Scott Beauchamp was a liar. They have influenced the national sentiment for the better because they have possessed the truth as they knew it, which fortunately was the truth, period.