Us military taps social networking skills

Us military taps social networking skills

June 09, 2010

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TECH SAVVY: Thousands of young air force analysts show how the Facebook generation's skills help America's wars to nab insurgents

Analysts watch drone video feeds in the US to warn pilots and ground forces in Afghanistan of dangers through military chatrooms at Beale air force base in Linda California.

Christopher Drew.

CALIFORNIA

As a teenager Jamie Christopher would tap instant messages to make plans with friends, and later she became a Facebook regular.

Now 25, a first lieutenant and an intelligence officer here, she is using her social networking skills to hunt insurgents and save American lives in Afghanistan.

Hunched over monitors streaming live video from a drone, lieutenant Christopher and a team of analysts recently popped in and out of several military chatrooms, reaching out more than 7,000 miles to warn Marines about roadside bombs and to track Taliban gunfire.

"2 poss children in fov," the team flashed as marines on the ground lined up an air strike, chat lingo for possible innocents within the drone's field of view. The strike was aborted.

Lieutenant Christopher and her crew might be fighting on distant keypads instead of ducking bullets, but they head into battle just the same every day. They and thousands of other young air force analysts are showing how the Facebook generation's skills are being exploited-and paying dividends-in America's wars.

The marines say the analysts, who are mostly in their early to mid-20s, paved the way for them to roll into Marja in Southern Afghanistan earlier this year with minimal casualties. And as the analysts quickly pass on the latest data from drones and other spy planes, they are creating the fluid connections needed to hunt small groups of fighters and other fleeting targets, military officials say.

But there can be difficulties in operating from so far away. Late last month, military authorities in Afghanistan released a report chastising a Predator drone crew in an incident involving a helicopter attack that killed 23 civilians in February in Florida who were monitoring the drone's video feed cautioned two or three times in a chatroom that children were in the group, but the drone's pilot failed to relay those warnings to the ground commander.

For the most part, though, the networking has been so productive that senior commanders are sidestepping some of the traditional military hierarchy and giving the analysts leeway in deciding how to use some spy planes.

"If you want to act quickly, you've got to flatten things out and engage at the lowest possible levels," said lieutenant colonel Jason Brown, who runs the Air Force intelligence squadron at this base near Sacramento.

And the mechanics are simple in this age of satellite relays. Besides viewing video feeds, the analysts scan still images and enemy conversations. As they log the information into chatrooms, the analysts carry on a running dialogue with drone crews and commanders and intelligence specialists in the field, who receive the information on computers and then radio the most urgent bits to troops on patrol.

Marine intelligence officers say that during the Marja offensive in February, the analysts managed to stay a step ahead of the advance,sending alerts about 300 or possible roadside bombs.

4,000 analysts

The air force, which has4,000 analysts at military bases and is hiring 2,100 more, has sent liaisons to Afghanistan to help understand the priorities on the ground

Still, three-quarters of the 350 analysts have never been to the war zones, so a culture divide can pop up

Young minds

Marines say the analysts, who are mostly in their early to mid-20s, paved the way for them to roll into Marja in Afghanistan earlier this year with minimal casualties

And as the analysts pass on the data from drones and other spy planes, they are creating fluid connections needed to hunt militants

Bit by bit info

Besides viewing video feeds analysts scan still images, enemy conversations. They then log data chatrooms

The analysts carry on a dialogue with drone crews and intelligence specialists in the field who receive the information on computers and then radio the most urgent bits to troops on patrol