Stepping out of the Shadows

This week has been fairly strange, I've received calls from 4 news agencies, two of them radio, one from a major TV station and a print newspaper. I ended up sending the newspaper to some other bloggers who have not been quotes as much. When it rains it pours. I've forwarded all of the reporters to the local PAO (who’s probably feeling like a press agent these days) and informed my Chain of Commands about my blogging practices.

When your name is slung around cyberspace as much as mine, it’s best to keep everything transparent. I have this re-occurring nightmare that goes like this.

My CO is in the middle of a brief with the commanding general and the general asks my commanding officer “Did you see your doc on CNN the other night?” and in return my CO gives him a baffled look.

I’m at a different squadron then the one I deployed with and normally my blogging wouldn’t gather any attention until we’re ready to deploy then I would let the powers that be know that I have a blog and have been well versed on OPSEC and I was hoping to tell my story when we were in Iraq like my prior trips. That idea got shot down as soon as I appeared on CNN (even though a link from Matt at Blackfive gives me more traffic then being on CNN). I rarely blog about my unit but being active duty, it means that I do belong to someone. It’s best to keep them informed then having them blindsided.

Really, I'm just a normal regular guy who happens to write about his life on a public forum. I’m also married to an extraordinary pretty pink haired girl and my job sometimes takes me to places that most people can only imagine. While you can read about what’s going on in the news or official military releases. What’s it like walking home in the dark in a foreign country by your self across the lonely desert? What does Memorial Day mean to a deployed guy? Or how a Marine might act if you drop a dead camel spider on their lap?

I like to write and love reading even more and want to share some of these experiences with people that are interested. (if you’re a terrorist, you’d have better luck reading tealeaves then getting any useful info out of this blog). After doing this for 3 years, getting a readership isn't the problem that new bloggers have. I'll occasionally spotlight the new talent or if I see a story that isn't being covered enough that's important to me, I'll definitely post it.

And if I think it’s really important and not being covered, I’ll call in the big dogs.