Group items tagged

May 12, 2009: Moving a Nation to Care among Sandy Cook's distinguished reading recommendations at Veterans Today.

"In Changing the Organizational Culture, his article in Small Wars Journal, Caldwell writes that it's time for the Army to rethink its approach to the new media. Caldwell has some experience here: he was the person you saw in the Baghdad press conferences last year, speaking for the Multi-National Force [MNF, as he refers to it below]. Wherever you stand (or stood) on the war, what he's saying here bears reading, as he's proposing a new approach: Recent experiences in Iraq illustrate how important it is to address cultural change and also how very difficult it is to change culture: After MNF-I broke through the bureaucratic red-tape and was able to start posting on YouTube, MNF-I videos from Iraq were among the top ten videos viewed on YouTube for weeks after their posting. These videos included gun tape videos showing the awesome power the US military can bring to bear. Using YouTube - part of the new media - proved to be an extremely effective tool in countering an adaptive enemy."

Imagine some of the soldiers who survived the Battle of Gettysburg stopping the next day to write their dramatic tales - and people around the world instantly reading them. If that battle had been fought today, no imagination would be necessary.

Nathan James Keyes, had nightmares, suffered from depression and withdrew from family when he came back from Iraq the first time, in July 2004, she said, fighting off tears as she read from a letter to the judge. When he came back the second time, it was worse.

"November ushers in National Military Family Month (read the president's proclamation), with Veterans Day observations around the country beginning in earnest this week and extending into next."

A disabled Gulf War veteran who left Norman earlier this month on a hand-propelled bicycle headed for Washington D.C. to honor fallen soldiers has died. Kevin Baker suffered a seizure Friday morning in his sleep at the home of some friends in Lake Charles, La., said Norman resident Diane Zellner. He died in an ambulance en route to a local hospital, Zellner said she was told. Baker, a 39-year-old Navy veteran, had a history of seizures, stemming from a traumatic brain injury, she said. He also had been diagnosed with lymphoma.