Blogging General Reaches Out to Troops, Blows Off Security Fears

Danger Room had several stories recently about military leaders blogging and using social networking to accomplish the mission or get their message out.  Gen Oates and Gen Seip (in another Danger Room story) are some senior folks who are embracing the new media.  However, many in the military are still reluctant.  Cyberspace presents us with not only a threat, but also an opportunity.  The art is learning where is the dividing line (if one even exists).

By Noah Shachtman   January 16, 2009 | 9:00:00 AM

Http://Blog.Wired.Com/Defense/2009/01/Tf-Mountains-So.Html

While most of the Army is still wringing its hands trying to figure out what to do about blogs and other social media, the two-star general overseeing 19,000 U.S. soldiers scattered across 17,000 square miles of southern and central Iraq has decided to start blogging himself and holding online chats with his troops.

"There are some concerns by some people, based on the nature of our hierarchical organization, who feel this is inappropriate -- going around the chain of command,"  Major General Michael Oates, the commander of the Army's Task Force Mountain, tells Danger Room. "It is not in fact going around the chain of command; it allows us to connect to the chain of command in ways we have not been able to experience before."

The general's blog posts are simple -- questions, mostly, designed to be conversation starters. A quick query, on "what need to be changed," led to an improvement in mental health care at Ft. Drum, New York, where is unit is based. Another on "tour lengths in Iraq" sparked a fevered, 40-comment debate with soldiers and family members taking Oates to task in ways that would be unimaginable face-to-face. "Honestly no one really cares what we think," one commenter wrote. "Asking this question is a futile attempt at appearing to be concerned with the welfare of soldiers and their families," sighed another.

Oates doesn't seem bothered by the push-back. "I enjoy the open engagement with my soldiers. I'm interested in hearing their thoughts. And I have no problem with challenging them in an honest open fashion. I think this medium allows that," he says.

Oates first became interested in social media more than two years ago, when it became "blindingly obvious that these soldiers are using these social network systems," he recalls. "I'm always looking for another way to communicate with the soldiers." 

Ironically, Oates had to wait until he got over to Iraq to start his social media push; a lumbering military bureaucracy kept him from blogging, while his troops were stationed at Ft. Drum. "We did not get anywhere with it while we were in the United States because the rules, procedures, policies, and regulations are extremely inhibiting to doing that sort of thing."

In many ways it's emblematic of the Army's uncomfortable, uneven relationship with these new ways of publishing. Some generals see the sites as a security risk -- who knows what a blogger might say? Other senior officers are extending a wavering toe into the blogosphere, with stilted, irregular posts. Army public affairs holds private roundtables with top bloggers. At the same time, service secrecy regulations, read literally, make it next-to-impossible for average soldiers to blog.

Oates finds the security concerns overblown. "I think its a normal institutional reaction, conservative reaction to information," he tells Danger Room. "But I tend to think that's a very minor thing; most soldiers don't have critical, national-security-sensitive information. They just don't possess that kind of information, so I don't see that as a problem."

It's not the only way that Oates parts from the stereotype of the general-as-starched-shirt. Online, he's more likely to tease and joke than to issue orders. During a January 4th chat his troops asked -- anonymously -- about the Task Force headquarters' move to Basra, from the luxurious Victory Base Complex.

"What are things looking like for the Basra move, sir? I've heard several different stories," one soldier typed.

"Nothing certain yet," Maj. Gen. Oates responded. "But good chances we will replace UK forces in Basra before we depart. I get harder questions from the school kids."

"What sort of conditions is Basra in now compared to VBC?" another soldier asked.

"No Salsa night," the general deadpanned.

Other questions involved tour lengths, the Army's "stop-loss" policy of forcing soldiers to stay in a war zone, and cost-of-living-adjustments to pay. Oates decided to focus his efforts on this internal audience, as opposed to some other military social media experiments, which try to persuade a larger crowd. For now, he wants to unfiltered access to his troops.

And he wants them to talk right back. The chat gave junior officers and enlisted men a chance to talk directly with their commanding general -- which is unusual, offline. The chat's anonymity let them be frank, even about Oates' beloved (and ill-fated) Texas football teams.  

The general shrugs the interactions off as no big deal. "Fundamentally what I'm doing is not new. What I'm doing is communicating with my soldiers. What's new is the medium in which we're communicating."