Sweet Tweet
When the CO signs on to chat
by Sarah Smiley
When Dustin came home and told me that the military’s brass will start using online social networking to connect with Soldiers, Sailors and their families, I laughed until I snorted. Then I realized he was serious. So I looked it up.
Sure enough, there is Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Twitter using traditional online abbreviated lingo: 2, wk, fwd, pls. I scanned his recent posts, wondering how soon until he segues, by pure habit, into traditional military lingo: ASAP, on deck, alpha, bravo, underway. So far, aside from his profile picture, which is full of brass, Admiral Mullen seems exceptionally ordinary and civilian online. Maybe this is the military’s intention.
Still, the idea of the military infiltrating the increasingly trendy realm of online social networking seems as awkward as an adult sitting in one of those tiny chairs for toddlers at preschools.*
Facebook and Twitter are relaxed and cool. The military’s bureaucracy, God love it, has always been 5,000 miles away from “cool” and “relaxed,” and until now, that’s the way they seemed to like it.
Think about it – through all the trends of the past several decades (long hair, nose rings, dreadlocks), the military has remained the institution that requires its members to keep everything from their hairstyle to their uniform and their fingernails the same. True, there was that one moment in the 1970s when Navy pilots like my dad and my father-in-law got crazy and grew mustaches. But they were always within regulations. Sadly, many military men continued to wear mustaches, perhaps out of a need to “rebel,” long after it was considered cool in the civilian world. Which only solidifies my point.
For junior members of the military, I can only imagine that seeing your commander’s tweets and Facebook status updates is as much of a buzz kill as finding your mother-in-law’s. It will not be a coincidence if Commander So-and-So’s face appears in the “People You Might Know” box of many Sailors’ accounts, and then remains there.
(“Yes, I do know Commander So-and-So, but I’m ignoring his presence on Facebook because I don’t want to see which ‘Facts of Life’ character my boss is or what color represents his personality.”)
By the way, the opposite is also true. Commanders don’t necessarily want to know what the young people they command are doing every two minutes. And they especially don’t want to see pictures of what you did in Memphis during your leave.
Yes, this could get interesting. Of course, users can always choose who they “friend” or “follow,” which gives them (the military’s brass) and us (not the military’s brass) a lot of options. I’ll follow my husband’s bosses to see how well they transition to this new-to-them phenomenon of online social networking. But that doesn’t mean they are interested in my status updates or tweets. Which raises the question, who’s cooler now?
Case in point: I’m following Admiral Mullen. But, so far, he’s not following me.