"I put my blog on there and my family reads it," said Zimmerman, 29, a platoon leader with B Company, First Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment.
"I keep it as vague as possible," he said. "I'm pretty responsible about it. It's just basically to tell a little bit about my life over here," he said.
He's regularly at a base where he doesn't have Defense Department access to the Internet, but he has used it when he goes to bigger bases. He'll have to rely on a private account all the time now.
Memos about the change went out in February, and it took effect last week. It does not affect the Internet cafés that soldiers in Iraq use that are not connected to the Defense Department's network. The café sites are run by a private vendor, FUBI (For US By Iraqis).
Also, the ban does not affect other sites, such as Yahoo, and does not prevent soldiers from sending messages and photos to their families by e-mail.
Internet use has become a troublesome issue for the military as it struggles to balance security concerns with privacy rights. As blogs and video-sharing become more common, the military has voiced increasing concern about service members revealing details about military operations or other information about equipment or procedures that will aid the enemy.
At the same time, service members have used the websites to chronicle their time in battle, posting videos and writing journals that provide a powerful, personal glimpse into their days at war.
"These actions were taken to enhance and increase network security and protect the use of the bandwidth," said Colonel Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.
The Pentagon said that use of the video sites in particular was putting a strain on the network, and also opening it to potential viruses or penetration by so-called "phishing" attacks in which scam artists try to steal sensitive data by mimicking legitimate websites.
