MilBloggers Supporting CJ Grisham

It’s not a complex issue. Without violating operational security, do milbloggers, the families of milbloggers and supporters of milbloggers have the right to blog without sanctions from their command?

We have experienced military censorship without rationale here at America’s North Shore Journal. We posted a three part series about a nasty little firefight in Afghanistan, with video and photos. One of the participants approached us with the story, that had taken place months before.

Several weeks after publishing the series, that participant contacted us with a plea. Would we please take down the series? Despite originally receiving approval from the PAO at his command, he was now under severe pressure because of the story. He was told that it violated Opsec.

This was nonsense. The story was months old and the video had been publicly available on YouTube for some time. The Taliban knew what happened in that cornfield. It was not a security issue.

In commentary, as part three of the series, we questioned why the soldiers involved had not received higher awards for their daring and heroism on that day. Our logs show that the series was read widely, including at the DoD. Our suspicion is that when inquires were made from higher command, the decision was made to pressure the solder into getting the series removed.

We took the series down. We did not wish to be responsible in any way for punitive measures being taken against the heroes of that fight, especially our primary source.

CJ’s issues not only include opinions voiced on his blog, but the nasty and unprofessional behavior of the administrators in the Huntsville, Alabama school system where his children were attending school. He and his wife tried to stand up to defend their rights as parents and the educational establishment swung into full retaliation mode. He was publicly defamed by teachers in classes. Complaint after complaint was filed about him with his local command. His fight with PTSD was publicly used as a weapon against him. The administrators lied, repeatedly, about their actions.

The milblogger Days of Silence campaign is not just about CJ. It is about every member of the military and their families and their supporters. It is about OUR rights, rights that are not surrendered upon enlistment. It is about petty acts by officers and noncoms who suppress and oppress the people who are fighting to keep us free.

The costs of keeping our rights is steep. Adding the vindictive actions of small minded people in the military and in the Huntsville schools to those costs is unconscionable. The DoD needs to fix this and fix it immediately.