Social media is the latest tool in communication within the military, allowing for improved battlefield strategies and awareness for soldiers.
Texting and on-the-fly videos are helping spread crucial information across battlefields to soldiers in need of speedy analysis, and military-classified blogs and social media forums helps soldiers to pinpoint solutions for obstacles and improve tactics.
In one example, a soldier faced with defusing a bomb texted his in-field dilemma to thousands of other soldiers. Within one hour, he found his answer from a fellow soldier situation from a far corner in Afghanistan.
"Obviously, information is only useful if you get it when you need it," said Dan Kuehl, director of information strategies of the National Defense University. "That is something that this technology has made possible."
Communication technology has long been a key to successful warfare, but now information traveling in real-time immediacy is helping improve soldiers' situational awareness.
"It has enormously shrunk the time gap between when someone sends out pieces of information and asks for it, and when it get back to them," Kuehl added.
Beyond the battlefield, social media like Facebook and Twitter, traditionally used to keep soldiers in touch with family back home, help the military to track enemy movements or identify insurgents.
In a program created by San Diego-based Ntrepid, military personnel in Florida's MacDill Air Force Base created fake social media identities in foreign countries to persuade anti-American groups to join chat rooms where they would either combat anti-American sentiment or pinpoint extremists.
Mobile media is also allowing military personnel to more accurately portray what happens behind enemy lines. For example, foot soldiers use cameras mounted on helmets to document what really happens during a battle, sometimes helping counter destabilizing disinformation with mobile-broadband speed.
Use of social media by soldiers hasn't been without controversy, though. Just recently the Army offered its apology after a photo of U.S. soldiers posing with dead Afghans hit the Internet.
While speed and accurate information is helping soldiers diffuse grenades and the military execute better decisions in troop movement, it is also bound to help improve survival and minimize battlefield casualties.
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