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Army specialist Colby Buzzell figured he'd cap his yearlong deployment to Iraq by mustering out of the service this winter and easing into a new career. "I was thinking about maybe driving a cab," he says. But that was before he launched My War, an Internet-based chronicle of his life as an infantry soldier in Mosul, where he mans a gun in a Stryker brigade. Written under the nom de guerre of CBFTW (Colby Buzzell F -- This War), the blog is a mixture of gripping accounts of caffeine-driven battle maneuvers and amusing vignettes from the dusty grind of life...

Those of you who began reading this blog with my review of CBFTW's My War--Fear and Loathing in Iraq (CBFTW is a Hunter Thompson fan) and got thoroughly hooked on it in the days and weeks afterward most likely already know this, but for those of you who may be tuning in late, My War has been shut down--maybe by CBFTW himself, but maybe by the Army, and for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Ron Brynaert at Why Are We Back in Iraq? has done a nice job summarizing the story, some of which I didn't know. One day he...

May be considered a vanity, sorry to start out that way if it is, but Looks like CB at "My War" has hung it up Follow the link to see why it looks that way, I dont want to repost his stuff...

Aug. 24, 2004 -- Military officials are cracking down on blogs written by soldiers and Marines in Iraq, saying some of them reveal sensitive information. Critics say it's an attempt to suppress unflattering truths about the U.S. occupation. NPR's Eric Niiler reports. Army Spc. Colby Buzzell, stationed near Mosul with the First Battallion, 23rd Regiment, says he began his My War Web log to help combat boredom. "I'm just writing about my experiences," Buzzell says. "I'm pretty much putting my diary on the Internet -- that's all it is." Buzzell says he has avoided describing sensitive information, such as U.S....

"Please god, grant me the serenity to accept the fact that the human race is all things good, and all things evil. At the same time, grant me the courage, and strength to not give up what I know is right, even though its hopeless, and please give me the wisdom to take it day by day." -Blood For Blood Back when I was civilian, I lived in Los Angeles for awhile. Why I moved to LA I don't know, I just did. On random nights I used to go up to the historic Griffith Observatory up in the Hollywood...

Today we drove around somewhere to do something. All of us in the back of the vehicle brought a book to read during this ride. I brought George Orwell's, Homage To Catalonia tome. The New York Times refers to it as "perhaps the best book that exists on the Spanish Civil War." Our Combat Medic brought a thick ass book called The History Of Western Philosophy, and the other two brought a George Carlin book and the other a paperback vampire ghosts and goblins Ann Rice novel. The Medic was telling us that Ann Rice novels all have suggestive "gay"...

Today I received my first writing assignment. Not really the most glamorous of writing assignments, but a writing assignment none the less. It was a simple write up for an award that's going to be turned in for another soldier in my Plt, for his actions on 04 Aug. When I first got here, I asked my wife to mail me a small portable dictionary and a thesaurus. Something I could stash in my cargo pocket and read whenever I needed something to help pass the time. She mailed me a pretty good one that was a Dictionary and a...

The only time my father ever opened up to me about his experience in Vietnam was when I went home to visit my parents on a three day weekend prior to my deployment to the two way live fire here in Iraq. I remember growing up, my brother and I would always rent all the cool Vietnam movies, like Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Casualties Of War, whatever, you name em, me and my brother rented them. And we'd always try to get my father to watch them with us. But he never did. He'd watch like two seconds...

The other day, we went somewhere, and did something. Once we got there, we dismounted from our vehicles, and our Sqd Ldr placed us where he wanted us to be, and then told us our sectors of fire. Me and my AG went down and set in behind this burm. Today, my AG brought a new toy with him. An expensive mini hand held digital camcorder he ordered off the Internet. He just received it the other day in the mail, and he was extremely excited to have one now. Like a kid with a new toy on Christmas he...

One of the soldiers in my Plt has a little hand held micro-cassette recorder. He uses it to record messages back and forth to his wife back home. So out of extreme boredom I borrowed it from him, and I asked the first English speaking Iraqi person I could find, a couple questions. (Note: This interview was NOT taken at gunpoint. I was completely un-armed when I interviewed this individual.) QUESTION: What do you personally think of the US being here in Iraq and what seems to be the overall Iraq feelings about that? ANSWER: I wish that American Forces...

I never even knew what a Blog was until I read about them in an article in Time Magazine, about two months ago. I read the article and it mentioned how a lot of the soldiers down in Baghdad were writing about their experiences here in Iraq. After reading the article, I went down to the Internet caf‚, and checked them out, and a majority of them were just pure garbage. In fact nauseating. Its like they were written by armed forces recruiters, "Oh I love the Army, I'm soo glad to be here, oh, the Iraqi's love us, I...

Now here's what really happened: I was in my room reading a book (Thin Red Line) when the mortars started coming down. Usually when we get mortared it'll only one, maybe two mortars. But this mortar attack went on for almost 20 minutes. Each one impacting the FOB every couple minutes. Something was up. My roommate ripped open the door and yelled "Get your guys, Go to the motor pool! The whole BATTALION is rolling out!" Holy s**t, the whole Battalion? This must be big. So I ran over and woke my guys up, yelled, "Get your f**kin s**t on...

Those psychopaths that attacked us the other day wearing all black were all members of Al Qaeda. Today we had a Company formation and our C.O. came out and talked to us. We told us we all did an incredible job and was proud of all of us. He said we all executed our jobs perfectly. He also informed us that the people that were wearing all black were actually insurgents from Iran, members of Al Qaeda. He said the Army estimated that there were at least 100 of them out there attacking us the other day. The C.O. also...

It didn't get much media coverage, but troops from the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade say fighting last Wednesday in Mosul was the heaviest and most sustained combat they've seen in their nine months in Iraq. Insurgents with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s and improvised bombs fought a series of coordinated, running attacks against Stryker and Iraqi troops. One estimate put the number of attackers at 30 to 40, another at more than 100. Either way, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed an undetermined number of them - the official estimate is at least a dozen - while suffering no losses themselves. About...

My Sqd Ldr came back from leave the other day. So the Sgt that was filling in as Sqd Ldr while he was away, is now back in the TC hatch, so now I am now back to being a Machine Gunner again. They asked me if I wanted to stay behind the 50 cal in the hatch and I told them, "hell no." We had an Observation Post today, in the hottest part of the afternoon. Well over 100 degrees today. We went somewhere, parked the vehicles, and dismounted. 1st Sqd, who was several hundred meters away from us,...

This is what CNN wrote on their website about what happened yesterday here in Mosul: Mosul clashes leave 12 dead Clashes between police and insurgents in the northern city of Mosul left 12 Iraqis dead and 26 wounded, hospital and police sources said Wednesday. Rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire as well as explosions were heard in the streets of the city. The provincial governor imposed a curfew that began at 3 p.m. local time (7 a.m. EDT), and two hours later, provincial forces, police and Iraqi National Guard took control, according to Hazem Gelawi, head of the governor's press office...

Today at 15:15 we had a Company Mass Formation for a Purple Heart Ceremony for the fire fight that happened several days ago. My Plt Sgt who was standing next to me when we got ambushed was one of the soldiers today to receive a purple heart, for that bullet that almost killed him that went completely through his CVC helmet. This Purple Heart Ceremony was by far the largest Purple Heart Ceremony we've had so far here in Iraq, a lot of people were getting them today, about a dozen. Most of the Purple Hearts awarded were for RPG...