Being removed from friends and family within the military environment isn't the same as it was 50 years ago, or even 5 years ago. Now, you can talk to anyone you want in the world for free through the internet. It's incredible. Sometimes unbeknownst to my skype-chat peeps, I take pictures for posterity's sake - and thus this post.
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| This picture already prominently featured in an earlier post. |
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| My Mom and Dad |
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| Dad pretends to be a crotchety old man. |
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| "Ilana smile for a picture", I said. This is what I got. |
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| Grandma Lola learned how to use the computer! |
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| Just kidding! Mom was helping her out. |
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| Both Grandmas! |
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| Willie and Dena say hi. |
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| And Ari, he made it! |
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| Sometimes I get put on hold when real life calls. |
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| Jackie is truly honored to be chosen for this post. More on Jackie in a future post. |
Anyway, skype and google talk have really changed what life "downrange" is like. Society has romanticized the notion of the "war buddy" for centuries, especially in American culture. I think skype has worn down that connection that soldiers have on some level. It used to be a soldier was in a remote environment like this and there was downtime (this is what I've heard and seen, I clearly wasn't in any war back then), they could write a letter home or maybe even talk on the phone for a few minutes and then the rest of their time they'd socialize with each other practically every waking minute. Now, the situation is if there's a moment of downtime that soldier can be in instantaneous communication with his or her loved ones often face-to-face, so he or she rushes off to the computer.
Not that it's
necessarily a bad thing, but that romanticized idea of a war-buddy may be a dying phenomenon for much of the military.
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