Speaking at the MilBlog Conference 2006 http://www.militarywebcom.org/MilBlogConference/ I offered what I saw as the most important value of MilBlogs and MilBloggers, drawing upon the Vietnam experience of trading military victory for political defeat. Walter Cronkite led a media offensive against not only the Vietnam War, but against the military service itself. Those who doubt that should consider Cronkite’s own description later in his career.
“In the 1960’s, we were still a country shaped by World War II and a thoroughly plausible conviction that America had helped rescue the world from evil. Now, a new evil loomed. If we had lost the peace once by failing to confront Nazi aggression in Europe, we would win it now by confronting communism everywhere. Many of us, who had been young war correspondents in World War II, at the beginning of the Vietnam involvement saw a clear continuity of American purpose. The debate over Vietnam became bitter because it challenged my generation’s most important assumption of World War II: That the American power was an unwavering instrument of moral good.”
Now, according to Cronkite and all those who shared his twisted view, the battle against communism was nonsense and the military was different.
The battle was not to be against communism, but clearly against America’s own military by the sole arbiters of information flow. The battle was engaged against John.
That offensive, launched in living rooms and coffee shops from coast to coast, went unchallenged from military service members in the field. There was no mechanism nor the technology for them to rebut or directly dispute the nonsense that the Tet Offensive of 1968 spelled doom for South Vietnam and American involvement there. For, if a credentialed member of the media did not report it, it was never heard or considered.
It was this single caveat that enabled an agenda-driven media establishment to dictate the course of a war, successfully snatching political defeat from the jaws of a military victory.
It was this single caveat that enabled an agenda-driven media establishment to shroud, obscure and effectively steal the honor of honorable men like John, forever altering the course of their lives.
MilBlogs, especially those written in-theater, changed that. Permanently.
Never again will the Walter Cronkites of another day or another war have a monopoly on communication of the ground situation that could lead to disastrous manipulation.
No one, not even an entire culture, can steal a man’s character. They can only cast an illusion.
By Steve Schippert
http://commentary.threatswatch.org/2006/04/stolen-honor-reclaimed/
An excellent point.