The Major General at Fort Drum recently started his own blog. This is an extraordinary rare thing for a General to have (I think he is the only General with a blog in the army, but a I could be wrong). In fact, the military has taken to discouraging its officers from having blogs. In this case Mike Oates (the general in question) seems to have decided to go against the trend.

His blog is not about expressing his opinion, but about getting feedback from his subordinates. Each blog post is a question for people to sound off on. At first it does not seem that many people took him up on the opportunity. But more and more people seem to feel comfortable spouting off. For example, take a look at this post regarding why many people do/do not want to be stationed in the Fort Drum area. Or this one about allowing civilian air traffic to take off from Fort Drum.

It is interesting to read about the issues that get the people in uniform worked up.