Army chat-rooms gain semi-official status.

The use of Internet chat-rooms by junior Army leaders to collect and impart battlefield wisdom has become so widespread that it now enjoys mainstream status. So much so that the Army has institutionalized the practice under the name "Battle Command Knowledge System." What started out as the "CompanyCommand.com" website for captains in exchange ideas has morphed into a vast net of virtual communities. But fear that Iraq's insurgents would grab potentially secret information about U.S. operations prompted the Army to restrict these forums to the service's secure portal, Army Knowledge Online.

Gen. William Wallace, head of the Training and Doctrine Command, says the Army does not want to micromanage these exchanges. The risk is that once the users perceive the Army is controlling the content of the sites, the forums will lose credibility. "We don't want to over-control," says Wallace. "There's a certain amount of pride in these communities in thinking that they operate outside the institution."