Friday On The Milblogs

"You’d think all the criticism from left-wing websites like the
Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Salon would royally piss off the Army.

But at least one Army report finds the sites’ posts to be consistently “balanced.”

• Milblogs and ranked by Army weekly: Noah Shachtman at Wired, Danger Room
• From the scene: SF raid turns up naught in Jalalabad: Tim Lynch at Free Range Int'l.
  
• Death Of A Rancher: Paul Greenberg at The Patriot Post
• In Marja -lead, follow or get out of the way: Colonel Gary Anderson, Small Wars Journal
• "Why the fuck are they out there digging?" Blast from the past: Lt. Rajiv Srinivasan
• The Final Inspection, a poem: Solomon Fein, (Oldest Military Blogger)

"The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass."

Solomon Fein, World's oldest milblogger and Normandy D-Day veteran, age 87
with his grandchildren Jen and Dan

Tuesday On The Milblogs

"We were not interested in the political dimensions of the war, only the experience of thesoldiers, so we limited ourselves to the things soldiers had access to. We did not ask any generals why theywere in the Korengal, for example, because soldiers don’t have that opportunity, either."

An interview with "Restrepo" documentary filmmakers
Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington
on The Kitchen Dispatch

• Badly burned Iraqi boy returns home from the U.S.: Army Times
  
• La Jolla (CA)Rotary Club Fundraiser For School In Jalalabad: PR Log
• Dirt Roads & Potholes: Richard's Milblog from Afghanistan
• NGOs, local governments and communities explained: Humanitarian Exchange Magazine
• Supporting the fight: 270 days in Afghanistan
  
• Kunar Province. 500 patients in 2-day clinic: Combined Joint Task Force -82 (ABN)

"American and Afghan doctors observed patients together but American doctors did not provide direct healthcare to Afghan patients. Instead, they served as mentors and advisors to the Afghan doctors."

Sunday In The Milblog World

Restrepo, a documentary on the 173rd Airborne in the Korengal Valley
The Kitchen Dispatch shares the whole press kit.

(This is L.A., after all).

From Milblogs and Beyond

• Final Thoughts On Leaving Iraq: Ramblings From A Painter
• (Close to home) Police Ambushed in Ciudad Juarez, 8 Killed: L.A. Times
  
• Afghanistan --The Taliban Fear Contractors: Feral Jundi
  
• Coast Guard Rescues, repatriates 90 Haitians: Coast Guard News
• Al Qaeda Kills 15 In Phillipines: Long War Journal
• Kandahar Air Field Mortared: Kandahar Wake Up Call
• A Jirga in SE Afghanistan: Captain Cats Diaries

"Reconciliation in the Southeast is an elusive idea, another project hastily being pushed on people, sponsored by foreigners in order to expedite their own withdrawal, rather than having any genuine commitment to ensuring a long-term sustainable peace."
-Captain Cats Diaries

The Thunder Run

For several years now, The Thunder Run has scanned military blogs for fresh, original and meaningful content written by those on the front lines of war, at home, as well as timely news. The Thunder Run is now on Facebook.

Please "Fan" The Thunder Run to get news written by those in the fight. David Marron has done a terrific job culling through the blogs.