E-mail, telephone calls bridge the miles for soldiers

By CHELSEA J. CARTER
Associated Press Writer

Worried she might miss a call from her husband in Iraq, Chelli Plummer has calls to her home telephone automatically forwarded to her cellular phone.

But every time the phone rings, it's unnerving, says Plummer, 38, of Santa Maria, Calif. Her husband, Staff Sgt. William Plummer, is deployed with the Army's 759th Explosive Ordnance Disposal from Fort Irwin, Calif.

``Every time you hear on the news somebody has been killed, you wait for the phone to ring,'' Plummer said. ``You want the phone to ring, but you don't want it to ring.''

Once, it took weeks, sometimes months for a letter from soldiers on the front lines to get back to their families. Today, the Information Age can give family and friends back home instant access to soldiers at war through satellite telephones and e-mails.

The new immediacy can be comforting, but it has a flip-side.

``While it speeds up getting news, it also shortens the time we expect to hear from people, which means it speeds up anxiety,'' said Steve Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Jones described the double-edged nature of speedy communications: ``They want to hear from their loved ones, but they worry about what they hear.''

The technology advances have led soldiers and their friends and family to come up with creative ways to communicate, such as Web logs known as ``blogs'' and Internet chat rooms. Still others make regular use of calling cards and satphones.

Army Knowledge Online, a password-protected Web portal for soldiers and their family members, offers access to e-mail, photo sharing and instant messaging. The site saw a fourfold jump in family accounts, with nearly 30,000 new users since Jan. 1 and heavy traffic after the United States invaded Iraq, said Maj. C.J. Wallington.

Although some soldiers have had Internet access from the front, he said, much of the use appears to come from support units in the rear.

Connie Hatfield, a separation clerk with the 4th Finance Battalion at Fort Riley, Kan., communicates through Army Knowledge Online with friends deployed in the Gulf. Two of her friends with the Army's 101st Airborne Division have laptops, including a tank driver on the front lines.

Without the contact, ``I would be a lot more worried. Before you couldn't talk to them and find out if they were OK,'' she said. Now, ``We go online. They are online. We kind of go, 'Oh, good.' It's very comforting.''

Lela Vervaet, 29, of Maricopa, Ariz., and her husband, Staff Sgt. Chad Vervaet, also rely on the Internet.

Vervaet's mother has created a Web site, militarypride.org, for her daughter and other spouses to communicate messages to their husbands in Iraq. The site has a message book, music, news events, poetry and photos of Chad Vervaet and other members of his unit in Iraq.

But for many it's telephone calls that matter most.

``Nothing compares to hearing my family on the other end of the phone,'' Spc. Shane L. Fligor said in an e-mail from Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. ``I try to call back to the states once a week, but that is not always possible in this environment.''

Fligor, a communications operator with the 40th Signal Battalion, volunteers with others to maintain morale phones telephones provided for soldiers to call their families.

``There is nothing like seeing the faces of soldiers as they talk to their husbands, wives, moms and dads,'' he said. ``In this time of war and chaos, just being able to talk to mom helps you keep going one more day.''

Military officials do worry about battle plans and other sensitive information leaking out. Commanders regularly remind service members of the dangers of saying too much. So many conversations wind up being about the mundane the heat, the lack of showers, the sleepless nights.

Still, most are glad just to hear from their loved ones.

Emily Rahan, 27, of Buena Park, Calif., said she's surprised by the amount of contact she has had with her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Andrew Rahan, who is in Iraq with the 759th Explosive Ordnance.

She said she has heard more from her husband through e-mails and satellite phone calls since he was sent to the Mideast than she did during his previous deployment to Korea.

``It's a relief,'' she said recently. In those few minutes, ``you realize how important they are to your life.''

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AP Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun in New York and AP Writer Elliott Minor in Albany, Ga., contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)