the slogans are replaced, by the by

Wow, the Army came up with a new recruiting slogan! "Army Strong" will replace "Army of One."

The U.S. Army has tried to lure recruits with the advertising slogan "An Army of One" for less than six years, a blink of an eye in the hidebound traditions of the U.S. military. But the Army plans to dump it, starting next month, in favor of "Army Strong."

"An Army of One" was introduced to combat what consultants determined was a view among recruiting-age people that the Army was dehumanizing. The slogan has been derided by many from its outset as a glib fantasy of the regimentation required by the uniform.

The new slogan, developed in numerous tests with focus groups and interviews with soldiers, is meant to convey the idea that if you join the Army you will gain physical and emotional strength, as well as strength of character and purpose.

Aw, I'm going to miss "Army of One." After all, I am an Army of One every time I fight the bureaucracy for my benefits at the Veterans Administration.

I imagine it is pretty tough recruiting people to join the Army right now, what with that little squirmish in Iraq, and the resulting high injury count, not to mention the occasional death. Or 2,700 of them, and counting.

To see what actual soldiers are thinking and feeling, check out the section of Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau's website called The Sandbox:

Welcome to The Sandbox, our command-wide milblog, featuring comments, anecdotes, and observations from service members currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is GWOT-lit's forward position, offering those in-country a chance to share their experiences and reflections with the rest of us. The Sandbox's focus is not on policy and partisanship (go to our Blowback page for that), but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. The Sandbox is a clean, lightly-edited debriefing environment where all correspondence is read, and as much as possible is posted. And contributors may rest assured that all content, no matter how robust, is currently secured by the First Amendment.

Hats off to Trudeau for this. I read some of the posts, but had to stop for today. I can only take so much of this at a time. Real people, real lives, real tragedy.

Update: We've added a link to The Sandbox in the sidebar to the right.