Blogs von GIs im Scheinwerferlicht

--- Die LA Times rückt mehrere Irak-Weblogs von GIs ins öffentliche Licht: Other wars produced poetry and novels and memoirs. But the war in Iraq has brought a new kind of literature. In real time, on the Internet, officers and enlisted men and women are chronicling the war on weblogs — better known as blogs. Two weeks ago, one of the most popular war bloggers, a soldier stationed near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul who identified himself only as CBFTW, was disciplined by the Army for violating "operational security." His gritty postings described both the terror and boredom of war. Last week, he removed them from his "My War" website. But the journals of many other military bloggers remain on the Web. Here are edited excerpts from the blogs of Americans serving with the U.S. military in Iraq.

Der zuerst erwähnte CBFTW taucht interessanterweise -- weil zu rebellisch?? -- in den folgenden Auszügen gar nicht mehr auf. Dafür hat der Soldat die Story in dieser Richtung selbst ergänzt in seinem Blog: ‘COMBAT JACK’: CBFTW enlisted in the Army because, as he says,“I needed a fucking job, and at the time nobody would hire me, so I said fuck it, I’m going Infantry.” Upon graduating Basic Training from Fort Benning, Georgia, his orders sent him to Fort Lewis Washington, where he was then a part of the Army’s first Mobile Elite Stryker Brigade. After a couple months of showing up to 06:00 PT formations completely hung over and sometimes still drunk from the night before, his ass was sent to Iraq in 2003 where he has been conducting combat operations and has been placed on countless demoralizing details ever since. So far he’s been Stop Lossed and had both his R&R to Qatar and his mid tour leave cancelled.