Growing ranks of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are using written and video online journals known as blogs to share frontline views with loved ones and critics back home.Many soldiers blog to share feelings and experiences with family and friends.
Others do so to show the human side of soldiers in the conflict and to counteract what they see a skewed focus on politics and dire news by mainstream media.
"It's a whole new wave of journalism," said California National Guard specialist Jean-Paul Borda, who created Milblogging.com in October of 2005.
The website claims to be the world's largest index of military blogs, with a registry of 1,702 from 29 countries.
"When I started blogging originally from Afghanistan my thing was online humor," Borda said.
"I'd joke about things like care packages and avoid my mission. I didn't want to write about that because my family was reading it on a daily basis and I wanted to keep them at ease."
Borda said that blogging by soldiers, as well as their spouses and families, has exploded since he launched milblogging.com, which was bought by Military.com in 2006.
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