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Tweeting From the Front Line
blackbearnh writes "There's an interesting article up on O'Reilly Radar talking about how the US military is reacting to the increasing use of social media by soldiers in hostile territory. In an interview, Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, talks about the trade-offs between operational security and allowing soldiers and the public to interact, and how social media has changed the way the DoD communicates with the public. 'I think that we need to become much more comfortable with taking risk, much more comfortable with having multiple spokesmen out there, thousands of spokesmen in essence. But, for me, there's nothing more credible than the men and women who are out there on the front lines, fighting the wars that we're in, sending messages back to their family and friends.'"
It can be useful if you find something interesting to follow. Hint Hint: @climagic.
Where do you define the front line in asymmetric warfare? Chances are those support personnel have just as much chance to get blown up by an IED while conducting a logistics convoy or from a mortar round lobbed at the base, and that is not even accounting for the growing number of support personnel that are doing traditionally combat roles... perimeter defense, access control points, roadblocks, etc.
A lot of my friends are infantry types that manage to tweet or get on facebook while deployed. We had decent internet access during OIF I back in 2003...
Here's what I said on the subject in a similar BoingBoing thread recently:
If you really think that Twitter is terrible and causing the downfall of civilization or whatever, that's just a sign that you're not subscribed to the right feeds.
There are tons of feeds by brilliant, creative people like Peter Serafinowicz who really use the medium to its true advantage. The feed shitmydadsays, for example.
Also, if you have a small group of family and friends who have been scattered to the four winds for the usual reasons, it's a lovely way to be connected to them daily in an asynchronous, casual way. Perhaps you're lucky enough to have everyone you care about in the same time zone, but a lot of us are not that fortunate.
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Morale has been an issue in every major war.
Even hardened soldiers can get a boost from the occasional bit of bullshit conversation with the girlfriend/wife, the folks or the kids.
I think they're trying to avoid stuff like this:
tedstriker: My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.
elainedickinson: @tedstriker: When will you be back?
tedstriker: @elainedickinson: I can't tell you that. It's classified.