Where are the Veteran Bloggers?

For the past week, Turkish citizens have been protesting their government's increasingly authoritarian actions.  The government's reaction was unnecessarily violent.  During the protests, the Turkish government jammed social media so the protestors would have difficulty communicating their plight to the outside world.  Protestors turned to Blogs - like this one - to get the word out about the plight of Turkish citizens fighting for their democracy. Blogs are a powerful tool.  They have the ability to raise awareness of particular issues.  They can foment social change.   They can pressure politicians to make a change. These are the very things that Veterans need right now: awareness of a  broken benefits system, a desire for change in the American public, and pressure on our federal politicians to make those changes. Given those facts, one would think that Veterans - particularly OIF/OEF Veterans from the "social media generation" would be blogging about their problems with the VA, the difficulties they face in getting quality healthcare and access to benefits, and about the problems they face in Winning Their Peace. But no - they aren't out there. I spent 10 minutes this morning looking for blogs by Veterans or for Veterans.  I excluded blogs like mine, that are associated with a business, organization, "cause", or product (while these blogs do inform Veterans they are not true blogs).  I excluded blogs that were merely fronts for selling a product to Veterans.  I excluded blogs which haven't had a new post in  2 or more years. Here are the blogs that I found (If you know  of a Veteran writing a blog, email me and let me know. I'd love to follow it.): Of Pirates and Pups:  This is a blog by the spouse of a Wounded Warrior who served in OEF in Afghanistan.  She writes of the struggles her family - and other military and veteran families - face. (The link appears in our blog roll, to the right) Returning Combat Veterans:  This is a blog that appears to tell the stories of soldiers making the transition from battlefield to civilian life.  It is sporadically updated, but has a nice layout and flow.  That's it - 2 blogs in 10 minutes of searching. By contrast, spend 10 seconds doing a Google Search for Down Syndrome Blogs and see the results that come up instantly. Ironically, the most prolific blog was the Department of Veteran Affairs Propaganda Blog - where the VA tells the story of the (cough) great job that they are doing for our returning combat veterans. In the social media war, it appears that the VA is winning. Why aren't there more Veteran bloggers?  Why aren't more Veterans using social media to tell their story? I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Post them here, on Facebook, or Google Plus.