It's not surprising that the Defense Department has reacted negatively to soldier blogging. The military is a strenuously hierarchical institution, with finely graded ranks and carefully managed authority. Social networks create new openings for soldiers to step outside that hierarchy, even while deployed, and share their perspective to large and strategically important audiences. That gives military planners pause. Yet isn't it axiomatic that soldiers are entitled to exercise the freedoms they are willing to die for? It was that principle, coupled with antiwar activism, that drove America's last successful popular effort to amend the Constitution, to grant suffrage at the age of enlistment. Today's soldiers have much more modest requests. They want to network with new people, commune with friends and family, and share their stories with anyone out there who wants to listen. Pentagon leaders should be first in line.
