A step backwards for General Caldwell’s mil-blogging plans?

A story on Wired‘s website a week ago outlined how a Department of Defense “warning order” solicited feedback on a potential ban on the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook by military personnel.

Such a ban seemingly would fly in the face of efforts by Lt.General William B. Caldwell, who oversees the Army’s Command and General Staff College on the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth, Missouri. Caldwell recently ordered every officer at the CGSC to complete a course of “strategic communication” in order to graduate. Assignments include blogging, participating in an interview with a television, print or

radio reporter; publicly addressing a community group and writing an article or

opinion piece for publication.

“You have an amazing influence in the blogosphere,” Caldwell told The Pitch in this story.  “Here you’re deciding

what you want to talk about, and you’re sharing it with the world.” He expressed similar sentiments on the benefits of online communication in an article posted last month on Small Wars Journal. 

Caldwell’s progressive decision to encourage more online interaction between the public and the military was followed by a recent Army order to all U.S. military bases to stop blocking Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Now, a military social media ban is “all-but-certain,” Wired reports.

The news was surprising to some of the CGSC officers featured in The Pitch’s story earlier this year. Major Mark Andres emailed to say, “We all feel a bit shocked by it since we…were just starting to open up to SNS (social networking sites) and strategic communications with the American people.”

Andres collaborates on a blog called PiaFidelis . On the subject of a potential DOD-ordered social networking ban, Ft. Leavenworth soldier John Bushman writes, “I personally believe that it would be a major step backwards for the

Department of Defense and for any ongoing strategic communication

campaign envisioned by the US Army if the plug were pulled on social

media sites. The internet remains a major medium to tell the Army’s

story and its become a major link in connecting with the American

people.”

Now that Gen. Caldwell has turned Ft. Leavenworth’s officers into such good communicators, they know how to keep us in the loop on the latest developments. Ban or no ban, online communication between the military and the public might be one genie that can’t be put back in the bottle.