Army’s Blogger PR Push: Lame

So the Army has finally sent its “exclu­sive edi­to­r­ial con­tent” to blog­gers like me. And, wouldn’t you know it, that con­tent is almost com­i­cally lame.
Earlier this month, Charlie Kondek, an account exec at the Michigan pub­lic rela­tions firm Hass MS&L, e-​​mailed a “hand­ful of blog­gers” with promises of good­ies just for us. I wasn’t expect­ing much. After all, the Defense Department has been crack­ing down on blogs, lately. One Pentagon spokes­woman, after lay­ing out her strat­egy for keep­ing the main­stream media in check, admit­ted that she and her col­leagues “still dont know how to han­dle the blog­gers.“
But still. I fig­ured what we’d get in our in-​​boxes wouldn’t be this bad: two Wonder bread-​​bland pro­files of Army reservists.
As a mem­ber of the Army, [Staff Sgt. Jose] Salazar has been able to wear the uni­form across numer­ous con­ti­nents and time zones–including a recent deploy­ment in Iraqsomething a 17-​​yr old kid from San Francisco never would have even dreamed of.
Its inter­est­ing when I look back at my child­hood and see how much Ive changed over the years, says Salazar. The Army really pro­vided me with the tools and back­ground I needed to get on track. Now, as part of the Army Reserve, Ive taken that next step in the process, com­bin­ing my train­ing with my civil­ian career to help serve my coun­try in Iraq dur­ing a pretty his­toric period.
Staff Sergeant Salazar also cites travel and the oppor­tu­nity to expe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent cul­tures as another ben­e­fit of ser­vice.
Throughout my time in uni­form, Ive been able to travel all over the world and have been able to expe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent cul­tures and peo­ple and real­ized that, even though we may have dif­fer­ent beliefs and ways about our­selves, we are all really the same. My time in Iraq really pro­vided me an amaz­ing per­spec­tive on the world.
Hard-​​hitting, hunh? Well, that’s Woodward-​​and-​​Bernstein com­pared to this pro­file of JAG offi­cer Captain Patrick Johnson (that’s him in the pic).

In addi­tion to the mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship between the skills he receives dur­ing his Army train­ing and those used in his civil­ian career, Captain Johnson has also ben­e­fited from the empha­sis on char­ac­ter that the Army instilled in him dur­ing basic train­ingan impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tic that has remained a con­stant thread as he con­tin­ues to seek chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties to be part of some­thing larger than him­self, both in his role as an Army Reserve offi­cer and as a pros­e­cu­tor for Spokane County.
The Army really pro­vided me with so many fun­da­men­tal skills, from dis­ci­pline and honor to the abil­ity to make a dif­fer­ence in the world­skills that con­tinue to play an impor­tant role in every­thing that I do in life. I know that, what­ever the chal­lenge or obsta­cle, I can find a way to over­come itthe Army taught me that…
I’ve never lost sight of the fact that I’m lucky to be in a coun­try where I can advance myself as far as my abil­ity and drive will take me. Serving in the Army Reserve makes me real­ize that I am ensur­ing that these oppor­tu­ni­ties con­tinue for my chil­dren and my chil­drens chil­dren. Its a pretty amaz­ing when you think that gen­er­a­tions down the line will expe­ri­ence the effects of what Im par­tic­i­pat­ing in right now.

And to think, that was an exclu­sive… just for me.

February 6th, 2006 | Blog Bidness | 183512 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/02/06/armys-blogger-pr-push-lame/Army%27s+Blogger+PR+Push%3A+Lame2006-02-06+19%3A52%3A00murdoc You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.