VA Joe has some great features for getting in contact with other members of the military, both Active Duty and retired. We’ve also come across some useful dating/singles websites that are catered towards the military only, and they may be something our single members find fun and useful. Here’s a short spotlight on Military Dating Online:

Today we see many strides by sites like Match.com, Yahoo! Personals, eHarmony.com and others trying to attract more singles to try online dating. While big sites like the ones mentioned are becoming house-hold names, singles are naturally gravitating more towards focused dating sites that appeal to their interests and needs.

MilitaryDatingOnline.com is a perfect example. As an online personals site focused on helping military singles and civilians interested in dating military men and women, MilitaryDatingOnline.com is steadily growing to become the favorite website for singles to meet and connect with singles all around the world. With features that rival most paid dating services, MilitaryDatingOnline.com offers free membership to anyone, regardless of military status and location.

Being a part of our community gives you instant access to all our member profiles complete with photos, interests, location and much more. In an effort to keep our community active and helping you find a date, love, activity partner or friendships, we have sections of our site like:

• Community forums for you to share and participate
• Online dating blog to keep you updated on our plans for the site
• Free Horoscopes
• And much more.

MilitaryDatingOnline.com provides free online personals and dating services to singles in active duty as well as people who are not in the military but are interested in relationships with service members.

Enjoy member features like:

• Free sign ups and No membership fees – Ever.
• Unlimited messaging
• Free photos and video uploads
• Customizable profiles
• Search members by interest, city and military bases
• Meet singles all around the world
• And much more.

If you are single and want to find your match, then come on over and create your free personals account today at MilitaryDatingOnline.com

About MilitaryDatingOnline.com:
MilitaryDatingOnline.com is run by 2 people, Will and Derek. The site started off as a pet project 3 years ago to see if 2 people, living in totally different states can successfully launch a full-featured community site. After seeing the growth in online dating services for niche audiences, we decided to take it a step further and make major improvements to the site by adding more member features, expanding to more countries and so forth.

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Francis Marion talks about his milblog Where I Stand!

Question: What are 3 things your readers probably do not know about you?

1. My name: I am still fighting terrorists and the last thing I want is for someone to start harassing or attacking my family. Beyond a select few who have been vetted, my name will remain anonymous.
2. I acquired personalized license plates for my bike. I will not advertise my plate number since it will make it easy to track it back to my name but I will say that I use a single non-English word that adequately expresses the freedom I feel when I ride.
3. I love a good challenge that gets my cognitive juices flowing. For example, while attending the Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC) required for the rank of Sergeant in the Army, we were required to demonstrate our ability to lead a formation by properly giving every Drill and Ceremonies command a squad could perform. Rather than just going down the list numerically, I had to identify the order which would use each command only once and in the shortest time and space. I did it all in half a volleyball court.

Question: How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

My first blog posting was in 1995. Does this make me the first Milblogger? I created a photo journal after I returned from Haiti as an attempt to practice some html and web design. My domain name expired during my first deployment to Afghanistan and was acquired by a domain name pirate who tried to sell it back to me. It is still online in a subdirectory of the parent domain but I will not link it because it has too many pointers that can lead back to me.

My first post 9/11 blogging was by request of the America’s Army game program. I was asked to write about life in the army. I received some pretty good reviews. I added links to the original articles and posted a final few that they never got around to posting; you can find them on the side bar at my site.

I started Where I Stand while recovering from a motorcycle accident which left me unable to walk or work. I had been following GoldFalcon’s blogging at The Jump Blog and decided to give it a try. My initial excuse was to use it as some mental therapy to help me get over my post accident depression but I am pretty opinionated and it is really an excuse for me to express myself.

Question: What is your military experience?

I joined the National Guard at 17 and graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) at 20. After a few years, I enlisted active duty and was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group for 5 years and participated in the Haitian (almost) invasion. I spent 2 years teaching at the SFQC before returning to the National Guard. I have deployed to Afghanistan twice and I am currently in the Philippines as an advisor.

Question: What are some of your other favorite Milblogs?

I usually start my day going down the list of links on my side bar but if I’m short on time, I typically hit BlackFive, Andi, and Barb; between them, I get a pretty good balance of news and socializing.

Question: What has been the biggest factor in helping you create and publish a successful blog?

Successful? You would have to ask someone else…

Ok, based on what little success I do have, my history and location contributes much of my success. Taking online classes with the University of Phoenix has greatly improved my writing abilities. But, my biggest effort comes from the way I develop my drafts. I don’t touch the hot/popular topics unless I have something unique and substantial to add to the discussion, and I will frequently spend a couple of days thinking about the topic and composing my rough draft in my head before I start typing. I choose my words carefully to ensure that I express my true intent.

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Jack Army talks about his MilBlog JACK ARMY.

Question: What are three things your readers probably do not know about you?

That’s a tough one since I’ve blogged about so much, from education, to military experiences and training, to opinions on things such as religion, childrearing, politics, etc… I’m not sure that I’ve mentioned that I would love to be a writer. I’d love to make a living from it. Not sure that I have the skill or discipline, though. People don’t know that my middle name is a family name: Truett. It’s my father’s middle name as well as my great-grandfather’s. Pa-paw (my great-granddad) got his middle name from his mother’s maiden name if I remember correctly. That name dies out with me as I don’t have a male heir to pass it on to. People also don’t know that I have many little collections that are pretty pitiful. As a kid, I marveled at the various collections I saw and wanted one for myself: my grandmother’s spoon collection was the main inspiration. I tried collecting patches, marbles, coins, stamps, and many other things. All were miserable failures as collections and mostly served to frustrate me. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that the key to building a nice collection of anything was patience, something I had almost none of as a child.

Question: How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

I started my blog in February 2005. The first blog I ever saw was Wizbang! (http://wizbangblog.com//) and their post with the video of the Tsunami in December 05. I started reading other posts, clicking the links in their blogroll and discovered the wondrous world of the blogosphere. It was a magical time. So, after a few weeks of reading blogs, I felt like it was something I could do: it was writing, which I enjoy, but it was short blurbs instead of pages and pages of work. I had a lot of free time on my hands at that time so I decided to join the club and started JACK ARMY. I love blogging and reading blogs.

Question: What is your military experience?

I’ve been in the Army 18.5 years. I entered as a mechanized infantryman and my first assignment was in Germany. Good times. But I wanted more of a challenge so I tried out for Special Forces and was accepted. I spent a few years there before being assigned to recruiting duty. Now, I’m back in the infantry world and in Iraq. I’ve been to Airborne and Jumpmaster schools, SERE school, ANCOC as well as couple of the recruiting courses. I was taught to speak Polish while in SF and earned the parachutist’s badge from Poland and Germany. I’ve been to about 9 different countries and 20 or so states in the US either assigned there or for temporary duty.

Question: What are some of your other favorite Milblogs?

I enjoy several other Milblogs and check many regularly when I’m able. The one’s I always look at even if I only have a few minutes are Andi’s World (http://andisworld.typepad.com/welcome_to_andis_world/), Badger 6 (http://badgersforward.blogspot.com/), Countercolumn (http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/), Adventures of a Detailed Recruiter (http://detailedrecruiter.blogspot.com/), and Recruiting Tirade (http://recruitingtirade.blogspot.com/). Like I said, I check out many more, but those are a few of my regular reads.

Question:

What has been the biggest factor in helping you create and publish a successful blog? I’m not sure I would characterize my blog as “successful”. I don’t have a huge readership but I know there are a loyal few that check JACK ARMY often. Some are family (hi Katy!) and some are friends (hi Ernie!) but some are just folks that stumbled upon my blog and enjoy what I have to say. While I do blog about the military, and the Army in particular, a lot on my blog, I talk about a lot of other topics as well. I think one of the things that people like about my writing is that it is easy to read. I almost write like I talk and I’m able to make it flow easily. Of course, a generous portion of sarcasm gives it a bit of a sour twang, but the humbleness and truthfulness help take the edge off that bitterness.

Question: Do you have anything else you would like us to mention about you, your blog, or your readers?

Sure. I love blogging. If I could do it for a living I would. I love the Army, and luckily I’ve gotten to do that for a living for my entire adult life. I know the Army isn’t perfect, but it’s full of people that believe in the greatness of America and are willing to fight and die for the principles and ideals that make it a great place to live, work, play and raise a family. I have done so many things, gone many places and met many, many people that I would never have had the opportunity to do if it hadn’t been for the Army. Finally, thanks for this opportunity to share a little bit about myself and my blog. I don’t believe that I’m a great blogger, but I enjoy it and I’m thrilled that there are folks that find at least a little of what I have to say interesting enough to read and sometimes discuss.

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