War Is Hell? Not So Much, According To Air Force

The Air Force describes how it's using social media to counteract Internet propaganda by terrorist organizations. And they use social media to get the message out about social media, telling the story in a 10-minute YouTube video.The video opens with a Nov., 2007 quote from Defense Secretary Robert Gates: "It is just plain embarrassing that Al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America. As one foreign diplomat said a couple of years ago: 'How is one man in a cave able to out-communicate the world's greatest communications society."

The video goes on to describe how the Air Force is using video on YouTube and elsewhere, Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and Twitter to get the message out.

Most of the story is pretty fluffy. The Air Force isn't using social media for in-depth discussions of policy, technology, or strategy. The video talks about one airwoman who used MySpace to share photos and keep in contact with her mother, how the Army used social media to post bulletins about the 2008 Miss America Pageant, where an Army National Guard medic competed. The Air Force even has a video podcast about cooking-Grill Sergeants (recipes featured on that channel include Swiss Chicken Cutlet and Summer Bleu Salad-I guess my Dad's World War II stories about creamed chipped beef on toast, a/k/a "sh-t on a shingle," are as dated as the Andrews Sisters).

General William Tecumseh Sherman addressed a crowd of more than 10,000 people in Columbus, Ohio, in 1880, where he said: "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell."

But war in the Air Force video doesn't look particularly hellish. The video does feature one brief discussion by an airwoman about a firefight in which a comrade was seriously injured and nearly lost a leg, and another segment about an airman who uses social media to monitor his son's leukemia treatments at home. But mainly, the video makes military service look like fun. Is that the message we should be sending about the nature of military service? What do you think?

Watch the video:

InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on leading-edge government IT -- and how the technology involved may end up inside your business. Download the report here (registration required).

Follow InformationWeek on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and FriendFeed:

Twitter: @InformationWeek @IWpremium @MitchWagner

Facebook: InformationWeek Mitch Wagner

LinkedIn: InformationWeek Mitch Wagner

FriendFeed: InformationWeek Mitch Wagner