Very few people read the first Duffel Blog story published in 2012—which came true a few years later—but I kept at it and wrote a new article every few days, posting to social networks and sharing with friends. Some laughed. Others asked, “wait, wtf? Is this real?” And then, one day, I got an email from a bored soldier in Kuwait, wondering if he could write, too. He was published later that month and undoubtedly enjoyed the hell out of roasting his platoon leader online. So did soldiers who read it.
Since then, Duffel Blog has published thousands of stories by active-duty military and veteran writers, including:
- Pentagon study finds beards directly related to combat effectiveness
- Man who puked all over roommate’s clothes months ago now huge factor in whether you live or die
- Ken Burns runs out of hard drive space for Afghan War documentary
- Signals intelligence analyst under investigation for being normal
- Spelling error leads to mandatory vacations for all US troops
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis once mentioned Duffel Blog in his online biography and said he “enjoyed every bit” of us making fun of him... and we sure had a lot of fun doing it. Senators have taken our articles seriously. (Funny? Sad? It’s actually both.)
