Launched as a military blog by the Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau in October 2006, The Sandboxoffers service members in Afghanistan and Iraq a unique way to share their stories with readers at home, www.gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox.

In hundreds of fascinating and compelling posts, soldiers write passionately, eloquently and movingly of their day to day lives, of their mission, and the drama that unfolds daily around them. Focus is not on policy and partisanship, but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. The Sandboxis a lightly-edited debriefing environment where all correspondence is read, and as much as possible is posted.