Product Description

Matthew Currier Burden founded www.blackfive.net, one of the most popular military blogs on the Internet. His blog began as an homage to a friend killed on duty in Iraq and quickly became a source of information about what was really happening in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In The Blog of War Burden presents selections from some of the best of the military blogs, the purest account of the many voices of this war. This is the first real-time history of a war, a history written even as the war continues. It offers a glimpse into the full range of military experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, from the decision to enlist right through to homecoming. There are powerful stories of soldiers in combat, touching reflections on helping local victims of terror and war, pulse-racing accounts of med-evac units and hospitals, and heartbreaking chronicles of spouses who must cope when a loved one has paid the ultimate price. The Blog of War provides an uncensored, intimate, and authentic version of life in the war zone. Dozens of voices come together in a wartime choir that conveys better than any second-hand account possibly can what it is like to serve on the front lines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116066 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A torrent of Internet blogs has poured from U.S. forces overseas, providing a unique view of our wars. Retired officer and blogger Burden does not claim this collection of extracts represents a cross section of what's available, nor does he disguise his biases. All the officers in the book are competent; all the enlisted men and women are brave; and all the husbands love their wives and vice versa. Every writer supports America's war aims, admires the President, despises enemy fighters (generally referred to as terrorists) and holds a low opinion of Americans who oppose the war (generally referred to as liberals). The best (if sometimes troublesome) selections relate personal experiences: a woman trucker is severely wounded; a tanker fights his way into Fallujah, enthusiastically describing the men he kills; a base commander fires an obstreperous Iraqi employee. More literary efforts are less successful, with several wince-inducing attempts at poetic battlefield imagery. Tributes to fallen comrades often fall into mawkishness. Burden warns that unfettered war blogging may soon disappear under the heavy hand of military censorship, but if our leaders are worried about criticism of their policies, Burden's book will reassure them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Vietnam has often been called the "first television war." In a similar way, the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan might be viewed as the "first Internet war." That is, for the first time, Internet bloggers are having a significant impact in shaping the public perception of the planning and conduct of an ongoing war. Many of those bloggers are pundits or pseudopundits who have never been in harm's way. But Burden, a veteran who has served with Special Operations and intelligence units, provides a glimpse into a new form of war literature, the military blog. Previously, war letters, diaries, and memoirs were published long after the actual experience of the writers. Burden, a blogger himself, has selected observations of ordinary men and women written and sent in real time as they endure the cauldron of war. Some of the writings are mundane, but there are also chilling descriptions of surviving a mortar attack and attempting to save the life of a severely wounded Iraqi. This collection is an excellent introduction to an emerging form of war reporting. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE FALLEN

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

-- JULIE WARD HOWE, THE LAST VERSE OF "THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC"

Music has an enormous influence on our memories. On one early morning, I was on the way to work when music reminded me of a good friend. The first light of day had just peeked across the east horizon -- the sky was still dark blue. Seventy-five degrees. Beautiful. I put the windows down and felt the cool morning wind off Lake Michigan. The radio station was playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone."

Tuesday's gone with the wind

But somehow I've got to carry on.

A few years ago, during a night much like that morning -- 75 degrees, the dusk sky purple and pink and blue, a cool breeze off Lake Michigan -- my friend Cooter and I were in a beer garden watching a live band. Cooter was from East Kentucky and was visiting me in Chicago.

Cooter and I met about eight or nine years back. I was an officer and he wasn't. We shared some common hardships that would make us an oddball pair of friends. We became brothers.

So he came to Chicago not too long ago.

We were laughing over many beers when the band started playing "Tuesday's Gone."

Cooter, already well on his way to a hangover, jumped up on the picnic table and started singing along.

He yelled down at me, "Git up here, man!"

I jumped up on the table and noticed the crowd looking our way. I can't sing worth a damn and neither can Cooter. But that wouldn't stop us -- one arm around the other's shoulders with the other extended, holding a plastic cup of beer sloshing all over the place -- drunk and screeching at the top of our lungs.

Tuesday's gone with the wind

But somehow I've got to carry on.

And then I was back in the car and thinking of Coot and hearing that song and thinking of that night and thinking of his wife and wondering how she's doing and that I should call her.

That was the last time I saw Coot. He was killed in Afghanistan.

I remember that my eyes were a bit wet and the guy in the Lexus next to me had to be wondering, What's up with the guy in the Ford, singing loudly and out of tune?

Tuesday's gone with the wind

But somehow I've got to carry on.

As with music, there are other things that trigger our memories of loved ones lost in battle, or maybe they are signs. Heidi Sims blogs at Learning to Live, where she recounts her life before and after her husband, Captain Sean Sims, was killed in Fallujah, Iraq. Just a few days after learning of her husband's fate, Heidi runs across an article about Sean written by Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder:

• • •

Today I was in the grocery store and could not help but think about signs from Sean. While in the grocery store, I was helping my grandmother find foods for her diabetic diet . . . we spent a lot of time on the "health" food aisle, which I am learning is not that healthy! So we are reading labels (seemed like all of them) when something caught my eye so I turned around. In the middle of the sugar-free cookies was a four-pack of Guinness cans . . . if you knew Sean you know how much he loved his Guinness beer. No matter where we traveled we always had to find an Irish pub so he could have a brew while I sipped tea.

I long for him to send me more signs. I must admit that I was never a believer before November 13, but that night changed my mind. I can't help but remember the letter I sent to my family and friends a few days after my world changed. It was the first sign Sean sent me so I am going to share a part of it. I am truly a believer and waiting for more.

Dear Family and Friends,

I just wanted to drop a quick (well, it did not turn out to be too quick) email to let you know how things are going in Germany. My parents arrived today so a big load was lifted off my shoulders. The days are still long and the nights short, but I am doing pretty good I think.

My friend, the "wife," has been staying with me 24 hours a day. We were talking at 4 this morning about signs from loved ones that have died. I told her that I just wish Sean would send me a sign to know that he is ok, and he was thinking of me. Today, I searched to see if there was a news article maybe giving some insight to what happened. I found two news articles . . . one contained very painful information especially from a soldier in his company and a quote that he made about the cause of Sean's death but I found the article below and in my mind I got a sign. Let me explain and then you can read the article.

A few weeks ago, Sean had asked me if there was anything that I might want from Iraq . . . he sent a few rugs but most of you know that I have an obsession with blue and white teapots. I told him to send me a blue and white teapot if possible or just a metal teapot. He said he would see what he could do. I don't think he ever had the time but as I read the article my sign appeared. It might seem odd to some of you but it was a great feeling, and I have had a happy afternoon thinking about it and how much I love Sean and miss him tremendously!

Thanks for you prayers and support! I truly love all of you and know that I will get through this with all of your support! Enjoy the article. There is one sentence that is a little graphic.

With Love,

Heidi

AMBUSH STEALS LIFE OF TEXAS SOLDIER

By Tom Lasseter

Knight Ridder News Service

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Capt. Sean Sims was up early Saturday, looking at maps of Fallujah and thinking of the day's battle. His fingers, dirty and cracked, traced a route that snaked down the city's southern corridor. "We've killed a lot of bad guys," he said. "But there's always going to be some guys left. They'll hide out and snipe at us for two months. I hope we've gotten the organized resistance." Sims, a 32-year-old Texan from Eddy, commanded his Alpha Company without raising his voice. His men liked and respected him. When he noticed that one of his soldiers, 22-year-old Arthur Wright, wasn't getting care packages from home, Sims arranged for his wife, a schoolteacher, to have her students send cards and presents. Sitting in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle pocked by shrapnel from five days of heavy fighting, Sims figured he and his men, of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2, had maybe three or four days left before returning to base. They were in southwest Fallujah, where pockets of hardcore gunmen were still shooting from houses connected by labyrinths of covered trench lines and low rooftops. A CNN crew came by, and Sims' men led them around the ruins, showing them the bombed-out buildings and bodies of insurgents that had been gnawed on by neighborhood dogs and cats. The father of an infant son, Sims was still trying to get over the death of his company's executive officer, Lt. Edward Iwan, a 28-year-old from Albion, Neb., who'd been shot through the torso the night before. "It's tough. I don't know what to think about it yet," he said slowly, searching for words. Shaking off the thought, he threw on his gear and went looking for houses to clear. A group of rebels was waiting. They'd been sleeping for days on dirty mats and blankets, eating green peppers and dates from plastic tubs. When Sims and his men came through the front door, gunfire erupted. Two soldiers were hit. Crouching by a wall outside, Sgt. Randy Laird screamed into his radio, "Negative, I cannot move, we're pinned down right now! We have friendlies down! Friendlies down!" The 24-year-old from Lake Charles, La., crouched down on a knee, sweating and waiting for help. A line of troops ran up, taking cover from the bullets. They shot their way into the house. Sims lay on a kitchen floor, his blood pouring across dirty tile. An empty teapot sat on nearby concrete stairs. A valentine heart, drawn in red with an arrow through it, was on the cabinet. There was no life in his eyes. "He's down," Staff Sgt. Thorsten Lamm, 37, said in the heavy accent of his native Germany. "Shut the [expletive] up about him being dead," Sgt. Joseph Alvey, 23, of Enid, OK, yelled back. "Just shut the [expletive] up." The men sprinted to a rubble-strewn house to get a medic. The company's Iraqi translator, who goes by Sami, was waiting. "Is he in there? Is he there?" he asked. He tried running out the door, his AK-47 ready. As men held him back, he fell against a wall, crying into his hands. When the troops rushed back, they lifted Sims' body onto a pile of blankets and carried it to the closest Bradley. Six soldiers and a reporter piled in after, trying not to step on the body. In Baghdad, Qasim Daoud, interim minister of state for national security, had announced that Fallujah was under control. Back in Fallujah, a 2,000-pound bomb fell from the sky amid a storm of 155 mm artillery shells. A mosque lost half a minaret; its main building smoldered. In the back of the Bradley with Sims' body, no one spoke. The only sound was Wright sobbing in the darkness.

©2004 Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

I often read the long version of this article and find the end results so hard to believe. He was so close to making it to the end. I struggle with this daily but am proud of what he did. Someday it will be a better place . . . I long to go find that house.

I finally got up the nerve to email this reporter to ask some questions. Apparently someone had already shared my email with him. I really appreciated that he took the time to answer all my questions. A few weeks after we traded emails, I got a box at the post office. I opened it and the tears began to fall. Mr. Lasseter sent me that blue and white teapot . . . I l...

Customer Reviews

Finally - The Soldiers' Voices Speak
As Matt says in the introduction "military blogs were ideal for filling in the gaps that both the media and the military left out."

My blog is one of those Matt excerpted for his book...but it wasn't until I read The Blog of War in its published form that I understood how powerful and eye-opening it is to bring so many voices together in one book.

This book brings into a single volume the straightforward, heartfelt expressions of Soldiers, their families and friends as expressed in military blogs during the unique period of time before the military clamped down on such dispatches from the warzone.

What this book accomplishes is also unique: it allows the reader direct access to the men and women with a personal stake in Afghanistan and Iraq, allowing the Soldiers and their closest confidants to represent themselves. These are the voices of those directly and heavily invested in the war - the messages are intensly candid and personal. And they are their own, unfiltered by wire services, media or the Pentagon.

The book excerpts numerous blogs to bring the reader a broad sampling of circumstance, perspective and voice in a single volume. The act of reading this book will immerse the reader into the often mystifying culture of the men and women of the United States Military. Not the Generals, but the Lieutenants, the Sergeants, their wives and husbands.

If you know a Military man or woman who has served, you will appreciate the opportunity this book brings to become more familiar with the circumstances and situations they faced.

If you've ever wondered how or why some men and women voluntarily sign up to put themselves in those circumstances and situations, you will likely find your answer here.

Honest voices
What I like most about this book is that the contributors (and yes, I too am one) wrote their segments months or years before this book was dreamed up. None of us knew our words would be immortalized; they were just our bare-soul thoughts at the time. Most of the accounts were written the day the "event" happened, so what you read is the freshest and rawest emotions. This was a book a few years in the making, but each contribution feels spontaneous and true.

A MUST Read
Be prepared to laugh, cry, and be amazingly moved while reading this book. The bloggers do a fantastic job of telling the tales of war - on both fronts. Seeing the action through the eyes of the men and women there will change your life. Feeling the panic, fear, pride and joy on the homefront will move you in ways you never imagined.

Burden does a fabulous job of pulling together the posts and his segues are wonderful introductions and glimpses into who these amazing men and women are.

Reality TV? Who needs it. Read the book. You won't regret it.