Anyone who served in Afghanistan or has family who has...

MttStrn

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Hi All,

In my WIP the main character has a sister in the Marines serving in Afghanistan. He gets a few letters from her during the course of the story. Are letters still the main method of communication for soldiers, or are there other common methods? Email, Skype, etc. Any extra information on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Matt
 

thothguard51

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Letters are always appreciated, but in today's modern military, almost all service members have a military email address. They also have access to the web and social sites like myspace, facebook, twitter, etc...

The US mail, is still the best way to get care packages from home.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

One of my cousins has a son serving in Afghanistan. She gets email messages from him. And during a family reunion this summer, he talked to us through some sort of online video, maybe Skype.

Packages, though, have to go through the US postal service.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

virtue_summer

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Both my brothers are in the military. They've both been stationed in Iraq, rather than Afghanistan, in the past, but our main forms of communication were through email and checking updates to Facebook.
 

MttStrn

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Thank you everybody for the responses, exactly what I needed to know.
 

L.C. Blackwell

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While e-mail, telephone, etc. are readily available at the major bases, it really depends on where your character is posted. Someone sent to a remote outpost is likely to have limited access to computers, etc, and mail will arrive slower. If the truck got blown up on the way, or packages have been stolen, it may not get there at all. (Package theft has been a serious problem in both theaters of operation.)

Part of the communication issue is the time crunch--even if you have the access, you're often too busy, too tired, too everything. Even in a non-combat position, or a non-medical position, military shifts can be long and grinding. If you are in a medical position, you've got stress on top of stress from dealing with wounded or traumatic stress patients, which contributes to your own exhaustion. Going "outside the wire" is another story altogether.

Last, if you don't know already: members of the military serving in a combat theater are entitled to send "free mail"--that is, they do not have to pay postage for letters sent home. Letters shipped to an APO/FPO address pay regular U.S. postage.
 
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MamaStrong

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My husband is in the Navy, and our main form of communication were 15 min phone calls every port and care packages. We would send letters through the mail, but rarely.

My brother is Army and serving in Afghan right now, we send care packages and we video chat on either FB or Skype! :D
 

jclarkdawe

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Repeat L.C.'s answer here.

Where you are makes a big deal in communications. A big, well established bases can result in communications that aren't noticeably different from a US base. A smaller base, something that has just been set up, may only get mail call once a week. But the military tries like hell to make sure home communication is strong. During WWII, numerous sailors commented on how amazing it was to arrive in some weird port that their ship had never been to, to find bags of mail waiting for them.

One thing to factor into electronic communication is security blackouts. For various security reasons, suddenly all electronic communication will go down. And you'll probably never know why. Nor that it is happening. People have received increasingly ugly emails about why won't they respond, while under a security lock down, and then not be able to say they weren't able to respond because of a security lock down. Not fun for anyone to go through.

Care packages are very popular and are usually shared. With a shore based installation, you'll be able to figure out mail delivery (usually less than two weeks). Packages sent in things like computer boxes are likely to disappear. Custom forms may need to be completed depending upon the country.

If someone is assigned overseas for a while, during the last month of their deployment, they'll frequently send a lot of stuff home by mail. It's a lot easier than carrying it back. You'll have several seabags of gear that you have to carry.

Phone service can actually be pretty good. Not well known is the fact that phone calls to areas within free calls from a base can be a free call if you're overseas and calling over one of the military's lines.

The military is working hard on wifi as well. Initially they start with the club, but now they're trying to make it base wide so that people can do it from their tents or other quarters.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Her Dark Star

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I send e-blueys a lot - type up an letter, copy and paste into the website form and the army PO prints and seals it into a letter which is physically delivered. Like sending a real letter but it gets there a lot quicker. That's for the UK army but I know that the US uses them as well.
Otherwise as people have said, email and phone depending on where they are, otherwise care packages and letters. I have to admit though that I don't expect to hear back from them myself until they get home
 

BRDurkin

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Both of my brothers have served in Afghanistan with the Marines, and communication with both of them was a bit different. With one, letters and the occasional phone call was how we stayed in touch. With the other, who was at a different base, e-mails were the way to go as he had access to computers. But his access was only periodic, because his location was always changing. Only when he was rotated back through his main base would he be able to send an e-mail. He was also able to call from time to time.
 

AlwaysJuly

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What the sister does matters a lot too. A communications officer (like me ;)) generally has email and phone access at their desk 24/7 since their job revolves around IT. An enlisted comm guy or gal might or might not have that same access depending on if they were doing radio retrans or were in a data platoon on a large FOB. An infantry guy, for example, is going to have much more intermittent access. Does she have a particular job in your story?
 

mscelina

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My SIL just got back from a year and a half deployment in the Middle East. He and his bunkmates shared a MAGIC JACK connection--believe it or not--and he called my daughter maybe 4-5 times a week. On top of that, twice a week, they Skyped so the SIL could interact with his daughter, who turned two a week after he got back. (Very effective communication too--she knew exactly who he was when he got home and ran to him with her arms extended to be picked up)

We mailed maybe three packages to him through UPS--one Christmas and two birthdays.

And nary a letter was written. Not one.