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SouthCom chief encourages military bloggers

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The four-star chief of U.S. Southern Command urged service members to become published writers and bloggers at a three-day conference of the U.S. Naval Institute beginning here Tuesday.

Adm. James Stavridis, author of several guides and books on the Navy, said it’s important for members of the military, contractors and retirees to “read, think, write and publish.”

Stavridis has written articles for the naval institute’s journal Proceedings since his days as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy.

The process of reading and writing is important, he said, because the nation faces an “innovative” enemy like the Sept. 11, 2001, attackers and South American smugglers who transport drugs at sea in semisubmersible vessels.

“The most important reason is that the people who want to do harm to this country are doing so,” he said. “They are thinkers.”

Either through published works or through weblogs, the goal is an exchange of ideas, knowledge and information — such as on the participator-driven Wikipedia, he said.

“No one of us is as smart as all of us together,” he said. “The speed of ideas you can get in the blogs is remarkable.”

The military has not always welcomed bloggers in the ranks, especially those deployed in war zones who could inadvertently reveal operational and sensitive information.