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What fun it was
By Slab
Well, apparently some (*ahem* Noonan) are expecting a post mortem of this weekend. I'll keep it short and sweet, as I don't think I can add much to what is already out there. Lex, in particular, has a good account of the highlights. The man has a quite a way with words. Which, I suppose, he should, given his profession. You know how pilots like to talk. Mostly about themselves, of course, but it still tends to develop their vocabulary and locution.
I'm afraid I wasn't much fun on Friday night, as I had participated in a 12-mile hike that morning, followed by the 6-hour drive to NoVA. The dogs were barking, and I was a bit groggy from waking up at 4 AM. Neither would have stopped me when I was a 22-year old lieutenant in the Infantry Officer Course, but since years in the infantry seem to advance much like dog years (although maybe a bit faster), I am not as spry as I was six (normal) years ago. Anyway, that's my excuse. I did get the chance to meet my co-panelist Murdoc right off the bat, and made my way over to meet my other co-panelist Eagle1 and our esteemed moderator Donovan. John, of course, introduced me around to quite a few folks, not the least of which were Ward Carroll and Matt Burden. Matt apparently thinks I have the coolest job in the Marine Corps, since I get to control large amounts of high explosive falling from the sky. Or, in his words, "blow [manure] up!"
Saturday was very interesting, as everyone knows by now The Boss Man himself opened up the festivities with a taped address. I certainly appreciate the gesture, and it is an unmistakeable sign that the military blogging community is starting to be noticed. The first two panels were fantastic, although I would have liked to perhaps see different panels for embedded bloggers and servicemembers who blogged from in-theater. The first panel meandered a bit between issues affecting the two groups, and I think more would have come out of focusing on the groups separately instead of together. The speeches during lunch were great, and Chuck Ziegenfuss is an extremely funny guy, albeit a tad long-winded, as most "funny guys" are. While I greatly enjoyed his speech (if you can call it that), it ate quite a bit of our time for the third panel.
I didn't get to contribute much, since it was decided early on that Noah would get first crack at the MSM vs blogs issue, and we all knew it would be a firebrand. Sure enough, much of our time was spent with everyone's sights set squarely on Noah. Y'know what? Bravo to him for being unafraid to stand up and challenge the cherished notion that the MSM is an evil, biased, liberal mouthpiece. I chimed in ever-so briefly with my thoughts on unit blogging and trying to convince the military to empower young Soldiers and Marines to help write and distribute the stories that the MSM and PA types are missing, but was pretty much drowned out by the uproar over Noah's topic.
Of course that's not all, and I wish I had the time to write about all of the great people I met last weekend, but it would take me all night to do them justice, and I have predeployment classes to attend in the morning. I definitely hope that I am able to attend next year, and perhaps make a more meaningful contribution next time. Until then...
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I was an absolute pleasure meeting you. I wish I had a chance to talk to you earlier. I thought you did very well Saturday. You may not have had as much time as Noah, and you were too polite to talk over him. But what you did say needed to be said.