The Blog of War by Matthew Currier Burden, the founder of Blackfive.net, was released today. It has already to jumped to #273 on Amazon.com's list of bestselling books. The book features the writings from dozens of military bloggers, also known as milbloggers. Here are few comments from book reviewers.
Publishers Weekly: "The best (if sometimes troublesome) selections relate personal experiences: a woman trucker is severely wounded; a tanker fights his way into Fallujah, enthusiastically describing the men he kills; a base commander fires an obstreperous Iraqi employee. More literary efforts are less successful, with several wince-inducing attempts at poetic battlefield imagery. Tributes to fallen comrades often fall into mawkishness. Burden warns that unfettered war blogging may soon disappear under the heavy hand of military censorship, but if our leaders are worried about criticism of their policies, Burden's book will reassure them."
Booklist: "Previously, war letters, diaries, and memoirs were published long after the actual experience of the writers. Burden, a blogger himself, has selected observations of ordinary men and women written and sent in real time as they endure the cauldron of war. Some of the writings are mundane, but there are also chilling descriptions of surviving a mortar attack and attempting to save the life of a severely wounded Iraqi. This collection is an excellent introduction to an emerging form of war reporting."
Vanity Fair: "Can you handle the truth? Matthew Currier "Blackfive" Burden's The Blog of War (Simon & Schuster) is loaded with firsthand reports from the Internet diaries of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Grab it before the Pentagon orders it burned on the ever growing bonfire of lost civil liberties."
Washington Post: "Blogging the story of Schram and hundreds of other unknown soldier-heroes was a good decision, as was piecing together a collection of military blogs from all over the Iraq theater. Though Burden's politics have a decidedly conservative slant (one of his favorite bloggers, a Marine who re-enlisted as a corporal after watching others go off to Iraq and Afghanistan, calls his site 'Red State Rants'), nonpartisan patriotism is the common thread tying together these reflections, love letters and stories of combat. They make for riveting reading."
