By Holt, Charles, AFIS-HQ/IC  

November 6, 2006 I was transferred to American Forces Information Service, Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Internal Communication, New Media Directorate. My tasking was to figure out what was the New Media environment and how to engage. I studied U.S. Central Command’s Blogging Best Practices
published by Joint Forces Command as the Blogging Handbook and initiated contact with some of the bloggers listed there-in. Initially the discussion centered on how to get bloggers credentialed with the various public affairs and press offices and how to get bloggers embedded with troops downrange.
Some of the bloggers had limited success on their own, but it wasn’t until U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell and U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Fox decided to engage with bloggers did our discussions bear fruit. These initial engagements lead to the development of the Blogger’s Roundtable, the Blogger’s Roundtable website, and numerous bloggers embedded
with U.S. troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

February 2, 2007 the Department of Defense conducted the first Blogger’s Roundtable with U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Fox from Baghdad, Iraq via telephone conference call. What began as a once a week conference call with bloggers whose interest is the U.S. military and DoD operations has grown into an average of once a day conference calls with a wider variety of subject matter experts but primarily still focusing on the Global War on Terror and SME’s and
decision-makers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
During this time I have studied the New Media terrain and followed what has been happening in traditional media in response and reaction to developments in technology. What follows are my observations on the changing mediascape.

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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.

This post is online at Wardcarroll.com

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Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth

Commandant, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Deputy Commanding General for Combined Arms, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Director, Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance

Lieutenant General Caldwell currently serves as the commander of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, the command that oversees the Command and General Staff College and 17 other schools, centers, and training programs located throughout the United States. The Combined Arms Center is also responsible for: development of the Army’s doctrinal manuals, training of the Army’s commissioned and noncommissioned officers, oversight of major collective training exercises, integration of battle command systems and concepts, and supervision of the Army’s Center for the collection and dissemination of lessons learned.

His prior deployments and assignments include serving as Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Effects and spokesperson for the Multi-National Force – Iraq, Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division; Senior Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense; Deputy Director for Operations for the United States Pacific Command; Assistant Division Commander, 25th Infantry Division; Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Commander, 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division; a White House Fellow, The White House; Politico-Military Officer in Haiti during OPERATION RESTORE/UPHOLD DEMOCRACY; Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations, 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division during OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM; and Chief of Plans for the 82nd Airborne Division during OPERATION JUST CAUSE in Panama.

Lieutenant General Caldwell’s decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Legion of Merit (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Bronze Star (with one Oak Leaf Cluster), and the Louisiana Cross of Merit.

Lieutenant General Caldwell graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1976. He earned Masters Degrees from the United States Naval Postgraduate School and from the School for Advanced Military Studies at the United States Army Command and General Staff College. Lieutenant General Caldwell also attended the John F. Kennedy, School of Government, Harvard University as a Senior Service College Fellow.