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BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The U.S. Army says it will honor the "heroism and sacrifice" of 350 U.S. soldiers who were held as slaves by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Bernard "Jack" Vogel died in a Nazi slave camp in the arms of fellow U.S. soldier, Anthony Acevedo, in 1945.

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The decision by the Army effectively reverses decades of silence about what the soldiers endured in the final months of the war in 1945 at Berga an der Elster, a subcamp of Buchenwald where soldiers were beaten, starved, killed and forced to work in tunnels to hide German equipment.

More than 100 U.S. soldiers died in the camp or on a forced death march. Before they were sent back to the United States, survivors signed a secrecy document with the U.S. government to never speak about their captivity.

"The interests of American prisoners of war in the event of future wars, moreover, demand that the secrets of this war be vigorously safeguarded," the document says.

CNN last month reported the story of Anthony Acevedo, who was a 20-year-old medic when he was sent to Berga with the other soldiers. Acevedo kept a diary that details the day-to-day events inside the camp and lists names and prisoner numbers of men as they died or were executed. See inside Acevedo's diary »

That story prompted a chain of events, including hundreds of CNN.com users urging their congressional leaders to honor the soldiers of Berga. Two congressmen, Reps. Joe Baca, D-California, and Spencer Bachus, R-Alabama, wrote U.S. Army Secretary Peter Geren and asked him to recognize the 350 soldiers

The Army recently responded to the two congressmen, saying it is working "to determine an appropriate way to honor the heroism and sacrifice of these soldiers. We expect this review to be complete by March 6, 2009."

After learning of the Army's decision, Baca said in a press release, "The courage and perseverance they demonstrated in enduring such inhumane conditions is awe inspiring, and I am pleased the Army has opened a more extensive investigation into honoring these men."

For the dozen of Berga survivors who are still living, the news came as a shock. Many had long ago given up hope that their country would ever recognize them for what they endured.

"It's amazing," said Morty Brooks, now 83, when informed of the Army plans. "It's a recognition that's many years past due. No particular notice was ever given to us by the government, and it should be part of the military's annals."

Acevedo, now 84, noted the ages of the remaining survivors -- all of whom are in their 80s. Some are in failing health. He said he hopes the Army can reach its decision before March, because of the possibility some could die before then.

"If they can do it a lot sooner, we would appreciate it much," he said. "I thank God I'm still able to communicate and express myself with dignity, and I'm hoping the other fellas are able to communicate also.

"I've always been proud to be a U.S. soldier. It did me some good, with God's help and faith. I'll pray for everybody, all my other fellas."

He said the 350 soldiers are heroes who "exposed our lives for our country, for democracy and freedom of speech." The soldiers, all of them survivors of the Battle of the Bulge, had originally been sent to a POW camp known as Stalag IX-B in Bad Orb, Germany. From there, the Nazis separated the 350 soldiers based on being Jewish or "looking like Jews" and sent them to the slave camp around February 8, 1945. Watch Acevedo describe treatment in the camp »

In Boston, Martin Vogel sits quietly in his home. His brother, Bernard "Jack" Vogel, died in Acevedo's arms at the age of 19 in April 1945. Bernard Vogel had tried to escape from Berga with another soldier named Izzy Cohen. Both were captured and forced to stand in their underwear outside the barracks for at least two days until they collapsed.

The last words Bernard Vogel ever uttered were "I want to die, I want to die." Listen as Acevedo tells brother of victim: "I held him in my arms" »

Martin Vogel, 82, said that "since learning of my brother's death in 1945, a week has not passed that I don't think of his untimely death. Many questions had gone unanswered during this time."

After talking with CNN.com and the few remaining survivors, he said, "My thoughts have come into a clearer focus. I have learned of the last few days of [Bernard's] life and what horrendous event took place prior to death. This has at least crystallized the uncertainty of his death and brought a close to this chapter."

Vogel still gets emotional talking about his brother's death. He wrote his thoughts so he wouldn't cry talking about it.

He continued, writing that questions remain on many issues, including the fate of his brother's captors and "the unwillingness of the Army to publicly document the capture and imprisonment of these soldiers. ... The least is I now know Jack died with friends near him, giving him comfort in his last moments."

The two Berga commanders -- Erwin Metz and his superior, Hauptmann Ludwig Merz -- were tried for war crimes and initially sentenced to die by hanging. But the U.S. government commuted their death sentences in 1948, and both men were eventually set free in the 1950s.

Charles Vogel, the uncle of Bernard and Martin, was outraged at the decision. At the time a powerful Manhattan attorney, he petitioned President Harry Truman, Secretary of State George Marshall and Defense Secretary James Forrestal to overturn the commutation.

Charles Vogel also helped form a group called "Berga Survivors" after the war in which some of the slave camp soldiers would meet to discuss the best way to pressure the government to honor them and allow them to testify against Metz and Merz.

In a bulletin from one of their meetings in early 1949, the "Berga Survivors" appeared optimistic the government would act. "Your cooperation now is doubly important, for things are beginning to break our way," the bulletin says. "A little enthusiasm, a little more cooperation, a little more action will accomplish a great, great deal now."

It adds, "You can aid in the campaign to get Washington to procure full justice for us."

More than six decades later, it appears the work of the original "Berga Survivors" group was not in vain. Most have since died, but the few who remain alive say they will never let their fellow soldiers be forgotten.

"It's finally gotten to a point where the Army is coming to their senses after they had ignored us in the past," Acevedo said. "Why the silence all these years? It's time to recognize all these soldiers who sacrificed their lives."

CNN.com has located 14 Berga soldiers who are alive and will keep working to find if any others are still living.

(CNN) -- Bullets were pinging off our armor, all over our vehicle, and you could hear multiple RPGs being fired, soaring through the air every which way and impacting all around us. All sorts of crazy insane Hollywood explosions were going off. I've never felt fear like this. I was like, this is it, I'm going to die.

Army machine gunner Colby Buzzell posted unfiltered blog entries from Iraq about his combat experiences.

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When U.S. Army machine gunner Colby Buzzell began blogging about his combat experiences from a military base in Mosul, Iraq, he wasn't looking for attention or trouble. Buzzell just wanted a way to chronicle what he saw and did and felt during the Iraq war.

But his visceral, first-hand accounts were a bracing antidote to dry news reports and bloodless Pentagon news releases. In the first major war of the Internet age, Buzzell and other soldier bloggers in Iraq offered readers around the world unfiltered, real-time glimpses of an ongoing conflict.

"Here's a soldier in a combat zone ... writing about it and posting it on the Internet. I don't think that's ever been done in previous wars," Buzzell said.

"It just provides another perspective that no embedded journalist can ever do," said the veteran, now a freelance writer in San Francisco, California, and the author of "My War: Killing Time in Iraq." "An embedded journalist is just there observing. But a soldier writing about it -- you can't get more embedded than that

A suburban skateboarder with punk-rock sensibilities, Buzzell had no background in creative writing before he joined the Army in 2002. Inspired by a Marine buddy and burned out by a string of dead-end jobs, he signed up after a smooth-talking recruiter offered a signing bonus and sold him on the Army "like it was some [expletive] Club Med vacation."

When Buzzell arrived in Iraq in November 2003, he didn't know what a blog was. But after he read an article about a blogger in Time magazine in June 2004, he began posting anonymous journal entries on the Web under the nickname CBFTW (Colby Buzzell F--- The War).

"The only writing I knew how to do was ... like I was telling a story to the person next to me," he said. "I'd go to the Internet cafe [at the Army base], and my ears would still be ringing from whatever the experience [was] that day. There were times when I couldn't type fast enough."

Over the next six weeks, Buzzell wrote brutally frank, profanity-laced posts about the terror, tedium and misadventures of an infantryman's life in Iraq. At first, few people seemed to notice. But word spread, and before long he was getting hundreds of e-mails a day from readers.

Parents of troops in Iraq wrote to thank him for helping them understand their children's wartime perspective. One reader said they found Buzzell's blog more informative than the war coverage in The New York Times. Buzzell even heard from a sympathetic Iraqi in Baghdad who prayed for his safe return to America.

But almost nobody -- not even Buzzell's wife -- knew that he was the blogger.

Then came August 4, 2004. Mosul erupted in gunfire, and Buzzell's platoon survived an ambush by swarms of black-clad insurgents wielding rocket-propelled grenades. Buzzell witnessed his platoon sergeant survive a bullet through his helmet and narrowly missed being killed himself.

The next day, Buzzell went online and found a few brief news reports of the firefight that killed at least 22 Iraqi insurgents and civilians. In his mind, the stories didn't begin to capture what happened. So he wrote a long blog post, titled "Men in Black," about the ambush.

I observed a man, dressed all in black with a terrorist beard, jump out all of sudden from the side of a building, he pointed his AK-47 barrel right at my f------ pupils, I froze and then a split second later, I saw the fire from his muzzle flash leaving the end of his barrel and brass shell casings exiting the side of his AK as he was shooting directly at me. I heard and felt the bullets whiz literally inches from my head.

The "Men in Black" post attracted media attention, and Buzzell was flooded with e-mails and interview requests from around the world. Based on his descriptions of the Mosul attacks, his commanding officers soon figured out that he was the blog's author.

The Army confined Buzzell to the base and began monitoring his posts. Then, after he posted an anti-Iraq war rant by Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra, they ordered him to stop blogging.

Buzzell's Iraq blog lasted just 10 weeks, but it helped pave the way for others to follow. Today, according to the Army, thousands of active-duty soldiers write some form of online journal, often known as a military blog or "milblog."

Pentagon security policy forbids soldiers to publish sensitive information, such as unit locations or the timing of military operations, that might put troops in harm's way. But beyond that, soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are encouraged to blog about military life, said Army Public Affairs Spc. Lindy Kyzer.

"We're actually entering an era of transparency, where we need to have our soldiers talk. It does open up risks. Once you post something, you can't get it back. But we trust our soldiers with a lot," she said. "They are our best spokespersons. They know what the life of a soldier is like, and it's important to convey that to the American people."

Blogging also helps soldiers process traumatic combat experiences that can be hard for them to talk about, Kyzer said.

Since leaving Iraq, Buzzell collected his wartime blog posts and journal entries into "My War," which was published in 2005. Excerpts from his Iraq blog also appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience."

The war cost Buzzell his marriage and left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, a diagnosis that helped him avoid being redeployed to Iraq last spring. Now 32, he contributes regular features to Esquire magazine and hopes to write another book, the contents of which he's not ready to discuss.

Buzzell is no fan of the Iraq conflict, although he's heartened that active-duty soldiers are still reading "My War."

"The book is being passed around over there, which is kind of surreal," he said. "I do get e-mails from soldiers over there. Guys will say, 'Thanks for getting our story out,' or 'Things haven't really changed that much since you were here.'

"Looking back now, I don't think we had any business [in Iraq]," said Buzzell, who wants to see President-elect Barack Obama end the war. "Hopefully, he gets us out of Iraq in a way that's not a disaster or that gets a lot of soldiers killed."