Thank you Katherine of “You Served” for allowing me the opportunity to be a featured female military blogger!

You Served: What led you to be a Mil Blogger?
Jami: I had been in the National Guard for 5 years before I was deployed to Iraq in 2005. I never thought about blogging until my deployment to the Middle East. I think I started maintaining a blog mostly to keep in touch with everyone back home. I knew they would be worrying about how I was or what I was doing. Even though I wasn’t able to update my blog during that deployment as much as I do today, I think it still helped people understand what was going on with me and with the war in Iraq.

Part of me also maintained the blog to help document the experience. Today I’m so glad that I did! Memories tend to fade and distort with time. It’s my own personal time capsule.

YS: Do you feel that being a female Mil Blogger adds a unique perspective to your blog? If yes, how so?
J: I think that the vast majority of my blogging could have easily have been written by a male soldier. But I think the simple fact that I am a female soldier writer, regardless of what I write, makes it unique. I don’t believe that my writing speaks in any particular female voice. It’s simply another soldier’s perspective.

YS: In what ways did your time in Iraq change your perspectives?
J: When I arrived in the Middle East, I instantly recognized how sheltered I was as an American. This alone opened my eyes beyond anything else that had previously happened to me in my life. I also realized that being gone from home for so long taught me the importance of self reliance. I could see what it really meant to be poor and it left me with disdain towards America’s culture of materialism. Most importantly, my time in Iraq changed my perspective on life and it helped me understand the importance of living it with fervor.

YS: What is the main message you seek to share with visitors to your blog?
J: I write mostly observational posts. With that being said, I suppose my main message would be for people to take a moment to let these observations roll around in their heads so that they can see that the world isn’t so black and white.

YS: What have you learned from your experience as a Mil Blogger?
J: I’ve learned that writing publicly is both fulfilling and intrusive. Sometimes I forget that it’s more than just myself who can read the posts. The first time a stranger approached me to talk about my blog in person, (specifically about a few emotional posts) I didn’t quite know how to react. It’s an unusual feeling knowing that the stranger in front of you knows you far better than you know them.

YS: What advice would you give to a woman who wants to start her own MilBlog?
J: Try to write as honestly as possible but be mindful of the eyes who will be reading it. Also, for every negative comment you may get, you’ll received 10 more positive ones. Be sure you allow those 10 positive comments out weight the one measly negative one.

Popularity: 91% [?]

I was approached to be a contributor to an online series called “In Their Boots“.

From the website:

IN THEIR BOOTS is a compelling new magazine show about the dramatic impact the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are having on us - the people here at home. The show will feature our Iraq and Afghanistan service men and women and their families in stories and situations that have universal appeal.

One of the episodes is focusing on music and visual art that’s being created by men and women who have survived deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is where I come in.

After a lengthy conversation (interview?) with one of the film’s employees, I revealed that I would be going to Israel shortly. Apparently it isn’t in their budget to do the interview in Israel.

But I did ask her to contact my platoon Sergeant because the project is also interested in documenting unit reunions. My platoon has vowed to have an annual reunion on, or very near, the date of our deployment, August 25th. They’ve been in contact for the last couple of weeks and it looks as if the platoon will have a film crew in their faces later this year. It’s a very exciting prospect. It kind of immortalizes our unit, what we did out there, and honors us in an almost historic way.

Here’s the trailer for the project:

I bet you can’t wait to see the full length episodes. I know I can’t!

You can find more information about the series at their website:

Popularity: 46% [?]

A student journalist approached me via email to answer a few questions for an article she’s writing for the San Francisco City College campus magazine. She came up with some really great questions and I thought I would repost them here (with my answers, of course) for all to see.

She’s writing an article about the American populations current attitude towards the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and specifically focusing on the books and plays that give voice to soldiers who have fought there (Aftermath of War, Doonesbury’s The Sandbox, Letters From The Front Line, etc).

Do you think it’s a forgotten war?

I think that after five years, the war has become boring to the public. The American public gets bored easily anyway and their attention span can only take so much. I think the American people support the troops 100% and are deeply grateful for the sacrifices that myself and other soldiers have had to make, but they’ve lost interest in the daily death reports, suicide bombings, and terrorist attacks being reported by the media. I think the current public attitude was best put by Bryan Catherman in an email he sent to me which he wrote, “We’re in a season of ‘Iraq Fatigue’ (meaning the public has lost interest in movies, documentaries, books, and news about Iraq) and 2009 and 2010 are probably going to be worse.” I couldn’t agree more.

Do you feel the media could do a better job at covering such an important
issue that our nation is deeply involved with?

I think the media puts far too much effort into trying to entertain and attract readers/viewers than simply being informative to them. There’s a marked decline in the last year of news items about the war that’s continuing in the Middle East. During this Presidential election season, it’s difficult to find copy written about the war. It simply isn’t what the public wants to hear. Sure the media could push more of the news coming from the front lines, but it would be at the risk of losing their audience. It simply comes down to what the public will find more interesting to read about. In my opinion, the media could do a better job of looking past their bottom line figures and go back to providing solid and informative news items reporting on the Middle East.

Do you think collaborative projects such as this play [Aftermath of War], and books about the war (ie Letters from the Front Lines) are helping to raise awareness to the war, or do you think they just touch those who are already involved with or are interested in the war?

At this point in the war, I believe a majority of Americans will either have been a soldier, a family member of that soldier, a friend, a past veteran, or someone else touched by a person who had served their country in the Middle East. With that being said, I believe these wartime collaborations have an affect on a largely personal level with a huge variety of people; not just veterans. It’s very touching to hear the personal thoughts of actual troops and it brings the event onto a whole new level of understanding. It’s one thing to hear the news about the war and it’s a whole other thing to get into the head of the soldiers fighting that war.

Without any doubt, these projects bring a vast amount of awareness and understanding from the front lines to the home front. And I believe they’ll be equally important projects to see and read again after the war has finished and we can look back on them as historically significant.

Popularity: 61% [?]