Keeping In Touch With The Troops

We seem to be getting less and less news about the everyday life of the troops since Obama was elected.  Something tells me, for example, we'll never see Obama show up to serve the troops Thanksgiving dinner. I'll just say it, straight up: Obama doesn't understand his job as Commander-in-Chief. He continues to do his job, not as President of the whole United States, but as Campaigner-in-Chief. He doesn't get the soldier's mindset, he doesn't respect the military, and any protestations to the contrary, coming from him, have a hollow ring. His speeches about the military have a phone-it-in quality. We'll see. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but I doubt it. Frankly, I think I've given Obama of the benefit of the doubt more than I care to.

But oh my, how the Left hated Bush--such an e-vil guy, that Bush.

Bush serves up Thanksgiving dinner to the troops in Iraq in 2003

So since we're getting less news from the media about the day-to-day stuff with the troops, I'm thinking there are plenty of ways to do an end-around the media and find out what's really going on.

A site I like is one that I've already mentioned in another post: The Long War Journal. That site also has a blog called "Threat Matrix." This site isn't for the casual reader, but if you want details about what's happening in Afghanistan, for example, this is the place to go.

I just found this one, and I like it because it's written by the troops themselves. This is a command-wide military blog called The Sandbox. The blurb says it's not focused on policy or partisanship, but on the unclassified details of deployment. Stories from the troops, in other words. This site is maintained by Slate, and they say it's "lightly edited"; I'll just have to take them at their word that they're being real about the non-partisan thing.

Here's a well-known military blog: Blackfive, founded by Matthew Burden. He has a list of the Top 10 Military and Veteran blogs. Burden is the author of The Blog of War: Front-line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

MilitarySpot.com has a nice list of "favorite military blogs."

If the lame stream media won't give us credible, reliable reporting about the war and our troops, then there are certainly ways to get around the media. This is only one more instance of Big Media making itself more and more irrelevant.