Ok, I really couldn't think of a good name for this thread. I was watching CNN and today they are showing our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan speaking their greetings to loved ones here in the states. I was thinking that's guilding the lily since they must have so many ways to commuinicate with home via the internet. Let's see, you've got email and web-cams. Then there's the cell phone.
When I was in the Army and served in Thailand 69-70' I was stationed in North Eastern Thailand, we were above the DMZ. It was cushy duty, I was in the communications section of an engineer battallion. However, there was no TV, no radio, no phone, and...oh yeah. no internet. We had...mail.
The one time I tried to call home it was via landline which was then patched in through a series of ham operators. This was something the Army supported. I remember being in the comm shack and listening to all the operators confirming their leg was patched through. Then my parents came on the line and...click the line went dead. Somewhere along the line, someone must have thought they were done with their part and flicked a switch the wrong way.
I really don't know how easy communication is for our soldiers today, I've never talked to anyone who had personal experience. Just what is it like for today's soldier?
I remember going nuts because I couldn't follow the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Armed Forced Radio was available in the comm shack via land line. It was supposed to then be retransmitted throught the camp, but the transmitter was always broken and it had no priority to get fixed. Zip, nada. The landing was going to occur in the middle of the night and I wasn't working that shift, so I asked a buddy who was working to come to my hooch (what we called our screened in barracks) to wake me up in the middle of the night so I could listen to the landing live. That's how I managed to experience the landing. It would be a lot different today.
When I was in the Army and served in Thailand 69-70' I was stationed in North Eastern Thailand, we were above the DMZ. It was cushy duty, I was in the communications section of an engineer battallion. However, there was no TV, no radio, no phone, and...oh yeah. no internet. We had...mail.
The one time I tried to call home it was via landline which was then patched in through a series of ham operators. This was something the Army supported. I remember being in the comm shack and listening to all the operators confirming their leg was patched through. Then my parents came on the line and...click the line went dead. Somewhere along the line, someone must have thought they were done with their part and flicked a switch the wrong way.
I really don't know how easy communication is for our soldiers today, I've never talked to anyone who had personal experience. Just what is it like for today's soldier?
I remember going nuts because I couldn't follow the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Armed Forced Radio was available in the comm shack via land line. It was supposed to then be retransmitted throught the camp, but the transmitter was always broken and it had no priority to get fixed. Zip, nada. The landing was going to occur in the middle of the night and I wasn't working that shift, so I asked a buddy who was working to come to my hooch (what we called our screened in barracks) to wake me up in the middle of the night so I could listen to the landing live. That's how I managed to experience the landing. It would be a lot different today.
