Best pitch I’ve gotten this week

Came earlier today from OSD Public Affairs. It came from Jack Holt, the chief of their new media operations.

Who wants to talk to the guy who flew the first C130 relief flight into Burma?

Bloggers Roundtable w/Capt. Trevor Hall, USAF, the pilot-in-command of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to fly the first emergency relief supplies into Rangoon International Airport in Burma.

Wednesday 14 May
0900 Eastern

Can you make it?

Awesome story. Timely. Brief and to the point. And finally recognizes that not all the good military stories (in fact I would say few of the good military stories) come from men and women with stars on their shoulders.

Put the people on the front lines front and center more often.

Too bad I can’t make the call. Hooah, Jack.

Let’s play “guess that redacted PAO”!

I’ve already written about the New York Times non-story expose on the efforts of the Pentagon to provide briefings to retired generals who serve as military analysts for television media about ongoing action in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, things they might have interest in knowing about.

Well, apparently a bunch of e-mails, memos, fact sheets and other boring pieces of paper related to this program got FOIA’ed, and OSD has released them.

Take this group of documents for example. Other than former political appointee Dallas Lawrence’s occasional bad grammar and use of text message abbreviations in his correspondence, the most interesting thing about these e-mails is how frequently the e-mail addresses are redacted. All of the blocked out passages are labeled (b)(6). How cryptic!

Shall we play a game? Who are these mystery junior-to-mid-level communicators at the Pentagon?

I’m probably the only one who thinks this is remotely interesting.

But if you care to play, there are hundreds of pages of documents for your pleasure. Enjoy!

It seems like…

The Army Web Risk Assessment Cell has some new toys with which to track blogs.

Anyone from AWRAC wish to share? I’d love to hear more…

Blast-from-the-past blog tipping

This is apparently blog tipping week in the D-Ring; here is my second tip in two days. As an added bonus, it is yet another military public affairs blog! (Chris and Chris, he is a former Chair Forcer Air Force officer).

Anyone who has been to a military school knows that you make good friends who you inevitably fall out of touch with. You are together all day, every day for several weeks, then split and head your respective ways. You get restationed, you lose contact.

Well, I stumbled upon one of my good buddies from DINFOS — a guy named Aaron Henninger.

He is now out of the Air Force and running his own communications consulting agency. And he has a blog, called on the DEFENSE.

Check out the writings of another DINFOS-trained killer. You won’t regret it.

Blogtipping: Fewl.net

Under the category of new-to-me-milblogs, check out fewl.net, a blog written by a sailor stationed in Japan.

One of my favorites is his redacted blog post, poking fun at blog censorship:

The rest is just as good. You won’t be disappointed.

Breaking: This isn’t really a story

Apparently everyone is up in arms over the fact that Pentagon public affairs folks host regularly scheduled briefings for retired general officers (who happen to also be on-camera pundits for cable networks) about current military activities.

From Reuters:

Many U.S. military analysts used as commentators on Iraq by television networks have been groomed by the Pentagon, leaving some feeling they were manipulated to report favorably on the Bush administration, The New York Times said in Sunday editions.

A Times report examining ties between the Bush administration and former senior officers who acted as paid TV analysts said they got private briefings, trips and access to classified intelligence meant to influence their comments.

“Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks,” the newspaper said.

The Pentagon defended its work with the analysts, saying they were given only accurate information.

In other outrageous displays of the obvious news, Democrat and Republican spokespeople are given talking points and corporate CEOs are media trained. Details, tonight at 11.

Update: Jason hits the nail on the head. Check out what he has to say.

D-Ring news room

From Reuters:

About 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but about half receive no care, an independent study said on Thursday.

The study by the RAND Corp. also estimated that another 320,000 troops have sustained a possible traumatic brain injury during deployment. But researchers could not say how many of those cases were serious or required treatment.

Billed as the first large-scale nongovernmental survey of its kind, the study found that stress disorder and depression afflict 18.5 percent of the more than 1.5 million U.S. forces who have deployed to the two war zones.

The numbers are roughly in line with previous studies. A February assessment by the U.S. Army that showed 17.9 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from acute stress, depression or anxiety in 2007, down from 19.1 percent in 2006.

Friday fun video

Who says the Navy can’t have some fun?

h/t: ASY Live

Intel Dump goes MSM

Big ups to Phillip Carter, whose awesome blog Intel Dump has been picked up by The Washington Post.

I think this is a brilliant move by the Post. Carter is a great writer, has incredible insight, and truly gets how to create content for an online audience. Not bad for someone who is a lawyer by day. As pressures on traditional media to grow into the online space builds, I think we’ll begin to see more and more blogger acquisitions by media giants.

So who wants to scoop up the D-Ring? Politico? Anybody?

Maybe the topic of digital communications in the military is a BIT too niche…

At any rate, check out the blog at his new home. Congrats!

Color me impressed, Navy

As a former Army guy, it usually gives me great pains to give props to the Navy.

Not this time.

I’ve got to say that I am thoroughly impressed with an official blog started aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer. The Destroyermen is a blog written by crew members who want to give a realistic, unvarnished view of what life is like on this ship. From their mission statement:

Here it is:

To deliver an authentic, unvarnished, informative and entertaining account of life aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer, report on USS RUSSELL’s contribution to the Global War on Terror and execution of America’s Maritime Strategy, and provide insight into the character of the American Sailor.

Our first objective is to offer a true-to-life picture of what American Sailors do day in and day out aboard a warship, in port and at sea. There are, after all, more blogs out there detailing life of the ground-pounding variety than you can shake a cat-o-nine-tails at, but precious few that tell about American Sailors at sea.

Second, most Americans know few if any members of the military and little more about the military than its general role in society. So, one way to think of this blog is an unofficial civil-military relations project keeping the West Virginia miners, Montana ranchers, Iowa farmers and Boston software developers up to speed on what their Navy’s all about.

Third, we hope to provide insight into the U.S. Navy’s participation in the Global War on Terror and execution of America’s Maritime Strategy. To date, the Army and Marines have been grabbing all the headlines (both good and bad), and there’s been scant reporting about what the Navy’s been up to for the last six years. From the Philippine Sea to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Gulf, we’re in it up to our main trucks and somebody’s got to tell the story.

And that it does. The blog features great photos of what is going on aboard the ship. One of the interesting trends is a series called “Eye Candy for Sailors,” which shows pictures of the cool things sailors do on the job.

It works because it is authentic. It’s got a real voice.

The other services have some catching up to do, it looks like…