Silencing Our Soldiers

I just got through reading the following post at Blackfive and I have to tell you, I am completely at a loss right now.

The END of Military Blogging Posted By Blackfive The most excellent Noah Shachtman of Wired's Danger Room has a great article with lots of milblogger reaction to the new OPSEC regulations that will end military blogging as we know it. Yes, that's right - the end of soldier blogging from the war zones. Army Squeezes Soldier Blogs, Maybe to Death Noah Shachtman Email 05.02.07 | 2:00 AM The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say. Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result... Link

There has been alot of fuss recently about supporting the Troops. I spent the morning dwelling on the apparent need for some kind of uniformity in the way we support our Soldiers. I am waiting for a copy of the Official Guidelines To Support A Soldier as we speak.

Some say merely slapping a magnet on your car is not enough, some say you need to do a card drive, send care packages, join marches. Look, I think the way we choose to support the Soldiers is a matter of personal perspective. The fact that the Military and the Government are obviously choosing not to support the Soldiers is a whole other story.

Recently the Australian Labour Party, under Kevin Rudd, condemmed the Liberal Government under Prime Minister John Howard for not supporting the Diggers. They blamed the suicides of 2 Diggers who had served in the Middle East on the lack of support services upon returning....

Some Diggers refuse to get help: Billson Monday Apr 30 10:11 AEST Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Billson has defended the Australian Defence Force (ADF) mental health programs which have been criticised after the suicides of two soldiers who served in the Middle East. He said the ADF had one of the nation's best mental health programs which aimed to both prevent problems and treat those who had served. But he told ABC radio, a macho defence culture and a stigma against seeking help could be preventing some defence personnel from accessing the counselling help they need. He urged serving and former soldiers to take full advantage of counselling services for combat stress. "For many young people in the defence forces an almost macho style of outlook means that many might not be aware of the emotional stressors they are experiencing and the impact that may have on their well being," Mr Billson said. They could also be concerned that there might be some stigma at having those concerns recognised and treated. "That is why we are vigilant," he said. "That is why we keep focusing on what we can learn, what we can do to better prepare our people to support their resilience and make sure they are not only well after their deployment, but they are well to continue their service within the defence force or well to continue in their civilian life." The federal government acknowledges two soldiers killed themselves after returning from the Middle East, but veterans activists have been reported saying there have been as many as five. A further 121 returned soldiers have been medically discharged because of mental illness. Fearing there will be more soldier suicides, families, war veterans and MPs are demanding an independent inquiry. For ex-servicemen and women, the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service - formerly the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service - provides extensive counselling services. One Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) soldier named only as Adam, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said his biggest battle was in trying to gain help for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He said he had sought assistance for his nightmares about his service. "Pretty much the military said 'well you know suck it up and be a man about it'," he told ABC radio, adding that message came from both his superior officers and fellow soldiers. "The guys I was working with as well at the time were going through the same sort of phase." "These young guys are coming back from overseas and they are having to adapt to normality again and a lot of them just don't. "If a car backfires and the anxiety of hearing anything exploding is like being back in Baghdad or even back in Afghanistan again. "There needs to be a lot more vigilance on defence and the government's part to help these soldiers out."

Someone is failing our Soldiers. I'm not going to sit here and point fingers - Though I would like to point out to Mr Rudd that negating the efforts of Serving Soldiers and Veterans by denouncing all they have fought for and actively campaigning to bring them home can, in some circles, not necessarily be percieved as support.

However, I think the fundamental issue here is that we are cutting off the Soldiers voice and it is wrong. As a Soldier said to me recently..

"Those of us who fight for freedom have less rights and less freedoms than those who protest against us"

The Mainstream Media are free to publish whatever they choose (a right the Soldiers fight, bleed and die for) and will cattily retract or angrily defend the most obnoxious and arrogant of articles often fiercely protecting their ill percieved journalistic integrity.

Meanwhile, the people they make a living from are dying on the battlefield, they are dying of their own hand and their spirit and tenacity are faltering. What breaks the heart of any moral, decent human being lines the pockets of the MSM.

Dammit people, stand up and be heard!! For to long, to many of us have sat on our hands because we think our one voice counts for nothing. Collectively we are not a whisper, we are a roar. A deafening, thundering roar. We bitch and moan about the leftists movements and their publicity hungry advocates but what are we doing to counter their blatant disrespect and lack of patriotism??

We're sitting on our hands. We're being the epitome of complacency and it is so wrong.

Now is the time for us to stand up and be heard. We need to fight now before any rules can be implemented to silence our Soldiers. Americans, let this be a warning to you. Our Diggers have already been silenced. There is no Soldiers Angels, there is no AnySoldier.com. They are only allowed to recieve support from close friends and family. Get off your damm asses and fight for your Soldiers before the same thing happens to them!!

A_C