Over HereHow the Internet is (and isn't) changing US military computing culture in Japanby Thomas Caldwell A little more than two thousand years ago, Julius Caesar was able to conquer Gaul (now known as France) with just a few thousand men - an army about the size of the number of commuters who pack themselves into a couple of cars on Tokyo's Yamanote Line train during rush-hour. Two millennia later, in 1944-45, it took General Dwight D. Eisenhower the largest army ever assembled to accomplish the same feat. Yes, times (and operations) have gotten much more complex for the world's military establishment. Today, the armed forces of countries like the United States bear more resemblance to gigantic, bureaucratic, global corporations than they do to the armies of antiquity. It is logistics that wins today's military conflicts and helps maintain peace in the modern era. Ulysses S. Grant is sometimes credited with winning the American Civil War, but in truth he was only 50% responsible. Most historians agree that Montgomery Meggs, the Quartermaster General of the Army at the time, was the real genius behind the defeat of the Confederacy. It was Meggs who made sure the Union Army got its supplies - as much as was needed, of everything that was needed, when and where it was needed. Meggs is regarded as a logistical genius who changed forever the way the world's armies would operate. Today, another logistical revolution is changing the way the armed forces of the last remaining superpower operate - a digital revolution. Although we are constantly bombarded with stories about how the Internet is changing the lives of all sorts of people, little has been written about how the folks in uniform are faring. This shouldn't be taken as suggesting that US military personnel are unfamiliar with the latest technology, or that their lives and jobs haven't been affected - far from it! When one hears the words "military" and "computer" used in the same phrase, all sorts of images come to mind. First, perhaps - thanks to decades of Hollywood thrillers - are images of "locking" onto something and blowing it into little, tiny pieces. Images of darkened rooms deep underground, full of monitors with multicolored lights blinking in all the sorts of patterns that are a cinematic mainstay. Anyone who has stayed up all night with a Tom Clancy novel, or who has played a PC-based military simulation game, can relate to this. But what of the other, the real day-to-day military uses of the silicon marvels of the late 20th century? The effects of computers and telecommunications on the lives of individual service-men or -women may be less dramatic, but no less real and palpable.
Home is where the Net is The major reason for this is morale. It has been a rule of thumb ever since the time of Alexander that, to maintain an army in tiptop shape, ready to do whatever is asked of them, you have to keep the troops healthy and happy. And an integral part of that is bringing a bit of familiar "home" to those who are far away from home. But in spite of all the funding and effort the US government puts into keeping its armed forces personnel and their families happy, and offering the trappings of a normal daily American life, serving in the military is not all fun and games. Cruising around on a ship at sea for months on end, for example, can get even the most dedicated sailor down (even with onboard video arcade games to keep you in the blast-'em-up mood). This especially holds true for active duty men and women with families. Quartermaster General Meggs proved more than a century ago that there is no better prescription for keeping spirits high than the ability to communicate with the folks back home. The regular mail deliveries that he ensured reached the Union troops were an irreplaceable and highly anticipated part of the supplies. Until recently, particularly for the crews of forward-deployed ships, little had changed since the Civil War era. It would often take weeks for a ship at sea to receive mail, and trying to make/receive a phone call was a logistical headache. But now, even sailors and marines in the middle of the Pacific can hear how their son did in the Little League playoffs just a few minutes after the game ends, or send a birthday greeting to their daughter on the morning of the party - thanks to the Internet. Over the past few years, almost all of the ships in the US Navy have added Internet capacity (mostly via a satellite link, store-and-forward method). Crew members can now communicate with family and friends on a daily basis. Good news can be passed along instantly; family problems handled immediately, without days or weeks of waiting and worrying. Photographs of Jimmy's big game or Sally's birthday party, sent as JPEG file attachments, can arrive within hours of the happy news - or even within minutes if taken with one of today's increasingly common digital cameras. The same holds true for the "land lubbers" in the US Army and Air Force in Japan. All the Internet benefits that civilians have been crowing about for years are now being enjoyed by the men and women in uniform. The major difference is that for American military personnel, the Net is more than just an entertainment or business tool; the Internet is greatly contributing to bettering the standard of living, and providing a sense of "home," for US military forces and their families.
Forms and style The US military is famous for paperwork. To get anything done requires that the specified forms be filled out in triplicate, in the proper order and by the proper method. Style manuals are another ubiquitous part of military life. Every single form of written communication that the military is capable of has its own thought-out (note I didn't preface that with "well"), regimented style. Whether ordering sacks of potatoes or disposing of a deceased extraterrestrial, there is a predetermined way to write it up and pass it on along the chain of command. Although it has been the brunt of jokes for decades, paperwork and documentation are what enable any large organization to function efficiently. Organizations as large as the US military simply couldn't function without the paperwork. But what of paperless communication? There is presently no universal military style guide pertaining to e-mail usage or website design. Official controls and approved standards for e-mail and the World Wide Web are still being developed. There are, of course, security guidelines (maintaining security is always a first priority for the military), but none that stipulate how an official e-mail message should be written and routed, or what information a military-related website should and shouldn't contain or how it should be laid out. This has led to some confusion. With no "approved, official way" of doing all things pertaining to the Internet, individual commanders are left to make their judgment calls most of the time. This can obviously lead to conflicting "regulations" or questions about which rules apply when more than one base is involved. Will Internet-usage regulations be soon in coming? According to some of the Japan-based military personnel that I spoke with while preparing this article, e-mail is still too new. It is considered informal, and not something to be used for official correspondence or communication. But this mindset will certainly change as the benefits of conducting more and more military business digitally is recognized.
Shhhhh! But there are other considerations besides convenience. Anyone who has lived in Japan for any period of time eventually ends up listening at least occasionally to one of the US Military's Far East Network (FEN) radio stations. These stations regularly air public announcements about the need for something called OPSEC (military-speak for Operations Security). Although the civilian listening audience may find these announcements quaint, the folks in the military take the message they convey damn seriously. According to Lance R. Lindly, a Navy journalist-cum-military webmaster based at Yosokusa, "The military tends to forbid any mixing of public and classified systems, to the extent that you are not allowed to have Internet links to anything remotely sensitive." This makes it unlikely that the Internet will be approved for "official military business" anytime soon.
Webmaster First Class? Lance Lindly's official rank is Journalist First Class. But Webmaster First Class might be a better title. Lindly is the moving force and the skilled hand behind many of the websites run by the US military in Japan. He foresees the day when HTML, web design, and other Internet-related skills will be taught to certain categories of service personnel, but he doubts there will be a special job classification. "I can see skills like HTML code writing becoming a secondary school, what we in the Navy call a C-School," he says. Steve Hill, president of the Computer Users Group of Yokota, concurs. Hill believes that Internet duties will eventually be part of the job descriptions of existing classifications. "It will be an add-on item in your job description," he predicts. "Just another skill you are expected to master for your respective mission." In short, just as in civilian life, the Internet is changing the lives of many in the military. Although things will be slow to change on the "official business" side of the ledger (Can you say "government bureaucracy"?), Internet-based e-mail and informational Base webpages (see the "Military-related websites in Japan" sidebar) are already enhancing the lives of individual service-men and -women, and their families. For US military personnel in Japan, "home" is now just a little bit closer, thanks to the Internet.
|
