Military

Paperclipping Roundtable # 91: Scrapbooking The Military

This week we were joined at the table by military wives Stephanie Howell and Elizabeth Dillow, to talk about military scrapbooking and scrapbooking while your loved one is far away.

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The Panel

Military Digital Scrapbooks Get Government Boost

Lorrie McCullers has been scrapbooking since 1999 and has loved every minute of it. She is a tutor, specializing in high school English and test prep. You can learn more about her by visiting her at her blog.

Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) has secured an earmark of $5 million in Defense Department funds to be used to create digital scrapbooks for military units.

Remember My Service, a program currently being rolled out by the U.S. Army and the Salt Lake-based company Storyrock, compiles photographs and records to tell the stories of individual National Guard units.

Bennett and supporters of the program say that the digital scrapbooks are a morale-booster. Some even go so far as to say that the DVDs will even encourage troops to re-enlist.

The program is not without critics, however. Though the $5 million being used to pay for the program is a very small percentage of the overall Defense Department budget, many have pointed out that it is money that could be used for troop training or supplies.

Storyrock, the company chosen to provide the service, was started in Utah in 1998 as a digital yearbook company. The company has since added digital scrapbooking, as well as the military scrapbooks. Storyrock company officials have been reluctant to call the “Remember My Service” products “scrapbooks”, preferring instead to call them “historical records”.