Tag Archives: disclaimer

Character: Not the Views of the US Air Force

Reserve BrigGen Udo “Karl” McGregor is the US Air Force Vice Commander to the little-known Joint Enabling Capabilities Command. He has a storied career, from a helicopter mechanic as an Airman in the 1970s to the C-5 and joint billets today, logging more than 11,000 flight hours along the way.

On February 2nd, the official Air Force website published Gen McGregor’s commentary entitled simply “Character.” This was the very first line, emphasized in the original italics:

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, Defense Department or the U.S. Government.

For its part, the short article almost seemed to Read more

New Rules: US Troops Banned from Political Facebook Pages

If you’re a member of the US military and you’ve ever Facebook “Liked” President Barack Obama or Governor Mitt Romney, you’d better pay attention, because the Department of Defense just issued guidance that restricts that very thing.

Contrary to the conclusions of a prior article, the US DoD has just recently published official guidance on “political activities” in association with social media, and they’re fairly explicit.  The undated but very recently released “2012 Public Affairs Guidance for Political Campaigns and Elections” says:

  • You can express yourself on issues and candidates:

An [active duty] Service member may generally express his or her own personal views on public issues or political candidates via social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, or personal Blogs, much the same as they would be permitted to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper.

  • But, if you are “reasonably identifiable” as a member of the military, Read more