A Look At How Social Media Has Transformed The U.S. Military

U.S. soldiers take pictures of President Barack Obama at U.S. military base Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea, April 26, 2014. Photo by Lee Jin-man/Pool/Reuters

John Spencer, NYT: From Army of One to Band of Tweeters

IT was the end of a long combat patrol near a district called Adhamiyah, in northwest Baghdad, in the fall of 2008. It started like most daily missions but ended with a hidden enemy throwing a grenade at a vehicle convoy, missing it but hitting a young Iraqi child instead. As the company commander, I met the soldiers at the site and after a few hours followed them back to our base. I left the men, went to stow my equipment and brief other officers.

When I went back to talk to the soldiers who had been on the patrol, I was surprised to find them not grouped in conversations about what had happened, as I’d come to expect during my career in the military. Instead, they were sitting silently in front of computer screens, posting about their day on Myspace and Facebook.

WNU Editor: This has all happened in the past ten years .... I can only imagine what the next 10 years will develop.