Omega
March 17th 05, 03:18 AM
This can be a problem. I get calls from friends talking about how the wife
or husband tends to be too much into small problems, that why can't they see
the "big picture"? Sometimes you do not want all the details when you call
back home.
The other problem is that when someone dies, the fellows in the unit may
beat the official team in contacting the family. That is not good...
March 15, 2005
For Troops, Home Can Be Too Close
By IRENE M. WIELAWSKI
ane Murray was fuming as she answered the phone, and, hearing her husband's
voice, let it rip: their teenagers had once again left the bathroom littered
with empty shampoo bottles despite repeated lectures on tidying up.
It was a routine parental exchange, but not one Ms. Murray would have
indulged in had she taken a moment to collect herself. The problem was one
of context. Ms. Murray's husband, Col. John M. Murray, was calling from
Baghdad, where he commands 6,000 soldiers of the First Cavalry Division out
of Fort Hood, Tex.
Over nine time zones and many months of separation, his wife's outrage over
a messy bathroom simply did not compute, turning a conversation both Murrays
hoped would serve as precious reconnection into a reminder of how far apart
their worlds really were. "I slipped up," Ms. Murray said ruefully.
Military scientists have long studied wartime communication, but the war in
Iraq is opening a new dimension. Virtually every soldier, sailor and marine
there has access to e-mail and cellphones, a broad and largely uncensored
real-time communication network unprecedented in military history.
The military is taking steps to control the information flow, in part with
Internet kill switches at bases to give senior officers a means to enforce
communication blackouts. Military researchers, meanwhile, are scrambling to
track the broader impact of instant communication technology. Studies under
way include the interpersonal - as in the Murrays' painful collision of
household and war zone - and urgent matters of national and military
security.
"We are going to learn profound lessons from this war about how to manage
these devices to communicate what we really want to convey, and reduce the
negative aspects," said Dr. Morten G. Ender, a sociologist at the United
States Military Academy at West Point.
Learning the best use of e-mail, cellphones and other interactive devices is
critically important to the military, where careless communication can cost
lives. But experts say that even seemingly mundane exchanges have
implications for troop morale and the emotional health of service families.
More than 95 percent of the military personnel in Iraq report using e-mail,
and nearly two-thirds say they use it three or more times a week, said Dr.
Ender, who also is looking at subtler issues like whether officers, troops
and families chose e-mail for certain types of messages - routine news, for
example - and saved more personal topics for cellphone conversations.
The capacity for such real-time, interactive communication has
unquestionably aided military field operations, but researchers say the
emotional and psychological impact on soldiers and their families is less
clear.
Just as television coverage during Vietnam brought shocking images of war
into living rooms, so today's communications technology has the potential to
immerse already anxious families in the raw experience of combat, while
miring soldiers in domestic problems that distract from the mission.
"My wife is having problems with getting yard work taken care of without
having to pay out the nose for it," a 29-year-old Army captain complained in
a survey about whether deployment had resulted in "marriage issues."
Others reported haggling by e-mail or cellphone over money. The Internet
enables soldiers to monitor their bank accounts from Iraq, a mixed blessing
in the case of one soldier who discovered that her husband had used up her
combat pay on Yankees tickets and a new boat.
Families, too, can become so tethered to cellphones and e-mail that they
have difficulty re-establishing normal routines at home, said Dr. D. Bruce
Bell, a psychologist and an expert on military families, formerly with the
Army Research Institute in Arlington, Va. This contrasts with previous wars
when letters arrived infrequently, and separations provided opportunities
for spouses to master new skills.
Finally, there is the problem of technology misfires - the Iraq cellphone
network crashes or e-mail goes astray. These can bring on spikes of anxiety
as family members leap to the worst possible conclusion.
"We've raised expectations of instantaneous communications to such an
unreasonable level that when we can't connect, the technology ends up being
a new source of stress," said Dr. Frederic Medway, a psychologist and a
specialist in military and family separation issues at the University of
South Carolina.
The technology can also distort communication. Cellphones and e-mail
artificially compress time and space, giving the illusion of chatting almost
in the same room. But as the Murrays' experience shows, context greatly
influences how people "hear" what's being said. Frequency and volume,
moreover, don't necessarily contribute to better understanding. "We are
seeing a great deal of information overload in soldiers in Iraq and in their
families," Dr. Ender said.
Military communications science covers a vast terrain. Commanders must be
able to communicate with frontline troops and supply lines, while keeping
important information from the enemy. But they have a parallel duty to
facilitate those troops' communication with loved ones because of
demonstrated psychological benefits to morale and combat readiness. Studies
of German military units in World War II showed that soldiers isolated from
contact with family and the larger society were more likely to surrender.
Such military concerns have led to significant communication innovation. The
concept of the postcard as a short form of letter is believed to have
originated in the War of 1812, when a commander worried about morale
suggested that his men write greetings on scraps of paper, which he had
delivered to their families.
In World War II, the Army tried to speed up family-to-soldier communication
with a system called V-Mail. Letters were photographed; the film then was
flown to battlefronts for reproduction and distribution. But what soldiers
and families gained in speed, they lost in privacy. Besides passing through
many strangers' hands, V-mail was subject to military censorship.
Real-time communication technology eliminates such controls - an obvious
concern for military leaders responsible for both security and the
psychological well-being of troops and their families. The military has
responded with increased training, essentially teaching self-censorship to
keep details of military encounters confidential. For families, the advice
is to keep conversations upbeat.
But the military's ability to shield soldiers and families is limited. When
an Army helicopter was shot down in Iraq last year, televised images beat
notification of next of kin by many hours - an agonizing communication gap
for family members at Fort Hood, who recognized the insignia of the
helicopter brigade from news footage of the wreck. Maria McConville, wife of
the brigade commander, received many panicky calls that day.
"Every wife wanted to know, 'Was it my husband?' " recalled Ms. McConville,
who also couldn't say, pending identification of the dead and the military's
notification visit to their families.
It is this system of in-person notification that has pushed commanders in
Iraq to intervene in the timing and content of soldiers' personal messages
home. The increased oversight was brought on by several incidents early in
the war, after families heard through the virtual grapevine - and not always
accurately - that their loved ones were casualties.
This was the impetus for installing kill switches on Internet servers at
Iraq military bases that senior officers can activate at the first word of
troops wounded or killed.
The idea is to forestall the natural inclination of the service members to
reassure parents or spouses that they are all right, or to comfort the
family of an injured buddy. However well intentioned, such messages can have
dire consequences for service families as they spread unverified through the
same technology that sped them from Iraq. Among many anxious questions: "If
Ms. Jones's son e-mailed, why hasn't mine?"
Because cellphones operate through commercial Iraqi networks outside the
reach of military kill switches, many commanders have also directed troops
to refrain from talking or messaging about casualties until senior officers
give their approval. Violation of these standing orders can result in
military prosecution.
Taming the technology, however, remains work in progress. Kill switches, for
example, send a message of their own. Now, when e-mail messages don't go
through or calls go straight to voice mail, families tend to leap to the
conclusion that someone's hurt or dead, ignoring possibilities - technology
failure, for example - that previously carried greater weight.
The military is addressing this reaction with so-called negative
notifications, which are e-mail bulletins to families whose relatives are in
units that didn't lose anyone but still are subject to the communication
blackout.
"Basically, we're letting them know there's a casualty, but it is not in
your unit," said Maj. Diane M. Ryan, an Army spokeswoman. She acknowledged
that this heightened anxiety among service families that did not receive the
negative notifications.
Relieving their anxiety isn't accomplished so speedily. The military aims to
notify families within four hours of a death, but the process frequently
takes longer. Delay can result from courtesies embedded in the casualty
notification process: for example, the delegation cannot visit families
before 6 a.m. or after 10 p.m.
Which is not to say researchers and military families advocate turning back
the clock on real-time communications. The benefits of hearing a loved one's
voice or reading a newsy late night e-mail message far outweigh technology's
harms, families say.
As for Ms. Murray, lately she has had better things to talk about with
Colonel Murray than shampoo bottles, their new role as grandparents. Ms.
Murray was at her daughter's bedside immediately after the birth.
"The first thing we did was call Dad in Baghdad," Ms. Murray recalled. "We
could never have done that before cellphones."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/health/psychology/15fami.html
or husband tends to be too much into small problems, that why can't they see
the "big picture"? Sometimes you do not want all the details when you call
back home.
The other problem is that when someone dies, the fellows in the unit may
beat the official team in contacting the family. That is not good...
March 15, 2005
For Troops, Home Can Be Too Close
By IRENE M. WIELAWSKI
ane Murray was fuming as she answered the phone, and, hearing her husband's
voice, let it rip: their teenagers had once again left the bathroom littered
with empty shampoo bottles despite repeated lectures on tidying up.
It was a routine parental exchange, but not one Ms. Murray would have
indulged in had she taken a moment to collect herself. The problem was one
of context. Ms. Murray's husband, Col. John M. Murray, was calling from
Baghdad, where he commands 6,000 soldiers of the First Cavalry Division out
of Fort Hood, Tex.
Over nine time zones and many months of separation, his wife's outrage over
a messy bathroom simply did not compute, turning a conversation both Murrays
hoped would serve as precious reconnection into a reminder of how far apart
their worlds really were. "I slipped up," Ms. Murray said ruefully.
Military scientists have long studied wartime communication, but the war in
Iraq is opening a new dimension. Virtually every soldier, sailor and marine
there has access to e-mail and cellphones, a broad and largely uncensored
real-time communication network unprecedented in military history.
The military is taking steps to control the information flow, in part with
Internet kill switches at bases to give senior officers a means to enforce
communication blackouts. Military researchers, meanwhile, are scrambling to
track the broader impact of instant communication technology. Studies under
way include the interpersonal - as in the Murrays' painful collision of
household and war zone - and urgent matters of national and military
security.
"We are going to learn profound lessons from this war about how to manage
these devices to communicate what we really want to convey, and reduce the
negative aspects," said Dr. Morten G. Ender, a sociologist at the United
States Military Academy at West Point.
Learning the best use of e-mail, cellphones and other interactive devices is
critically important to the military, where careless communication can cost
lives. But experts say that even seemingly mundane exchanges have
implications for troop morale and the emotional health of service families.
More than 95 percent of the military personnel in Iraq report using e-mail,
and nearly two-thirds say they use it three or more times a week, said Dr.
Ender, who also is looking at subtler issues like whether officers, troops
and families chose e-mail for certain types of messages - routine news, for
example - and saved more personal topics for cellphone conversations.
The capacity for such real-time, interactive communication has
unquestionably aided military field operations, but researchers say the
emotional and psychological impact on soldiers and their families is less
clear.
Just as television coverage during Vietnam brought shocking images of war
into living rooms, so today's communications technology has the potential to
immerse already anxious families in the raw experience of combat, while
miring soldiers in domestic problems that distract from the mission.
"My wife is having problems with getting yard work taken care of without
having to pay out the nose for it," a 29-year-old Army captain complained in
a survey about whether deployment had resulted in "marriage issues."
Others reported haggling by e-mail or cellphone over money. The Internet
enables soldiers to monitor their bank accounts from Iraq, a mixed blessing
in the case of one soldier who discovered that her husband had used up her
combat pay on Yankees tickets and a new boat.
Families, too, can become so tethered to cellphones and e-mail that they
have difficulty re-establishing normal routines at home, said Dr. D. Bruce
Bell, a psychologist and an expert on military families, formerly with the
Army Research Institute in Arlington, Va. This contrasts with previous wars
when letters arrived infrequently, and separations provided opportunities
for spouses to master new skills.
Finally, there is the problem of technology misfires - the Iraq cellphone
network crashes or e-mail goes astray. These can bring on spikes of anxiety
as family members leap to the worst possible conclusion.
"We've raised expectations of instantaneous communications to such an
unreasonable level that when we can't connect, the technology ends up being
a new source of stress," said Dr. Frederic Medway, a psychologist and a
specialist in military and family separation issues at the University of
South Carolina.
The technology can also distort communication. Cellphones and e-mail
artificially compress time and space, giving the illusion of chatting almost
in the same room. But as the Murrays' experience shows, context greatly
influences how people "hear" what's being said. Frequency and volume,
moreover, don't necessarily contribute to better understanding. "We are
seeing a great deal of information overload in soldiers in Iraq and in their
families," Dr. Ender said.
Military communications science covers a vast terrain. Commanders must be
able to communicate with frontline troops and supply lines, while keeping
important information from the enemy. But they have a parallel duty to
facilitate those troops' communication with loved ones because of
demonstrated psychological benefits to morale and combat readiness. Studies
of German military units in World War II showed that soldiers isolated from
contact with family and the larger society were more likely to surrender.
Such military concerns have led to significant communication innovation. The
concept of the postcard as a short form of letter is believed to have
originated in the War of 1812, when a commander worried about morale
suggested that his men write greetings on scraps of paper, which he had
delivered to their families.
In World War II, the Army tried to speed up family-to-soldier communication
with a system called V-Mail. Letters were photographed; the film then was
flown to battlefronts for reproduction and distribution. But what soldiers
and families gained in speed, they lost in privacy. Besides passing through
many strangers' hands, V-mail was subject to military censorship.
Real-time communication technology eliminates such controls - an obvious
concern for military leaders responsible for both security and the
psychological well-being of troops and their families. The military has
responded with increased training, essentially teaching self-censorship to
keep details of military encounters confidential. For families, the advice
is to keep conversations upbeat.
But the military's ability to shield soldiers and families is limited. When
an Army helicopter was shot down in Iraq last year, televised images beat
notification of next of kin by many hours - an agonizing communication gap
for family members at Fort Hood, who recognized the insignia of the
helicopter brigade from news footage of the wreck. Maria McConville, wife of
the brigade commander, received many panicky calls that day.
"Every wife wanted to know, 'Was it my husband?' " recalled Ms. McConville,
who also couldn't say, pending identification of the dead and the military's
notification visit to their families.
It is this system of in-person notification that has pushed commanders in
Iraq to intervene in the timing and content of soldiers' personal messages
home. The increased oversight was brought on by several incidents early in
the war, after families heard through the virtual grapevine - and not always
accurately - that their loved ones were casualties.
This was the impetus for installing kill switches on Internet servers at
Iraq military bases that senior officers can activate at the first word of
troops wounded or killed.
The idea is to forestall the natural inclination of the service members to
reassure parents or spouses that they are all right, or to comfort the
family of an injured buddy. However well intentioned, such messages can have
dire consequences for service families as they spread unverified through the
same technology that sped them from Iraq. Among many anxious questions: "If
Ms. Jones's son e-mailed, why hasn't mine?"
Because cellphones operate through commercial Iraqi networks outside the
reach of military kill switches, many commanders have also directed troops
to refrain from talking or messaging about casualties until senior officers
give their approval. Violation of these standing orders can result in
military prosecution.
Taming the technology, however, remains work in progress. Kill switches, for
example, send a message of their own. Now, when e-mail messages don't go
through or calls go straight to voice mail, families tend to leap to the
conclusion that someone's hurt or dead, ignoring possibilities - technology
failure, for example - that previously carried greater weight.
The military is addressing this reaction with so-called negative
notifications, which are e-mail bulletins to families whose relatives are in
units that didn't lose anyone but still are subject to the communication
blackout.
"Basically, we're letting them know there's a casualty, but it is not in
your unit," said Maj. Diane M. Ryan, an Army spokeswoman. She acknowledged
that this heightened anxiety among service families that did not receive the
negative notifications.
Relieving their anxiety isn't accomplished so speedily. The military aims to
notify families within four hours of a death, but the process frequently
takes longer. Delay can result from courtesies embedded in the casualty
notification process: for example, the delegation cannot visit families
before 6 a.m. or after 10 p.m.
Which is not to say researchers and military families advocate turning back
the clock on real-time communications. The benefits of hearing a loved one's
voice or reading a newsy late night e-mail message far outweigh technology's
harms, families say.
As for Ms. Murray, lately she has had better things to talk about with
Colonel Murray than shampoo bottles, their new role as grandparents. Ms.
Murray was at her daughter's bedside immediately after the birth.
"The first thing we did was call Dad in Baghdad," Ms. Murray recalled. "We
could never have done that before cellphones."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/health/psychology/15fami.html