Return of the Crazy Monkey - The Quatto Zone.

This is probably my last post from Afghanistan, since I'm heading home soon. I'm past the 365-day mark, and even an invitation to stay on working for Team Petraeus from the Gun-dog hisself is a pale substitute for getting back together with my family.

You'll notice that, once again, it's been more than a month between posts. The excuse this time wasn't the job but some bile-spewing from Michael Yon, who rallied his readers in a call for my resignation and a DOD investigation into my authorship of this blog and its linked posts on Facebook. Finally the truth can be told, sports fans: I am using my privileged access to information as a public affairs officer to do the bidding of Stan McChrystal and conquer the Internet one former girlfriend at a time. The charge was ridiculous, but I was dealing simultaneously with the Michael Hastings First Amendment Salvation Show. I only have room in my life for one glory hound at a time, so I took down the blog until we got through the transition.

I started this blog for the purpose of spending time every few days reflecting on things that interested me. I wasn't concerned about building an audience. I was flattered to have The QuattoZone named a "blog to watch" by Small Wars Journal and the Blogger's Expo last year, but I've actively resisted offers from journalists and other bloggers to plug it. For me, making the posts public was mostly a way to enforce better discipline on the writing and the thoughts behind it. I also wasn't concerned about spreading official views. I do enough of that in my job. Most of all, I wasn't interested in scooping anybody. I did what almost every other blogging hobbyist does: I commented on content provided by reporters who actually work for their stories. I made it a point not to use information that hadn't been reported from events that weren't witnessed by journalists...

More at The Quatto Zone.