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WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 17, 2008) -
Overseas-deployed servicemembers can receive video "shout-outs"
from home, as well as senior-leader messages, thanks to the new
TroopTube online information service, according to military
officials.
TroopTube is a new Web site managed by the Defense Department's
Military OneSource online information network.
It is patterned after YouTube, the popular commercial video site,
said Gail Lobisone, who works with Military OneSource at U.S. Army
Family, Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command in Alexandria, Va.
It can be accessed at www.trooptube.tv/home.
Each armed service manages a MilitaryOneSource.com site that
connects servicemembers and families to assistance programs that
deal with moving, finances, deployment, childcare and other
military-life issues.
The TroopTube concept is right for the times, Lobisone said
during a Nov. 14 interview with the Pentagon Channel. Today's
Soldiers, she said, "like the ability to connect through
technology."
TroopTube is expected to raise troop morale by providing
near-real-time communication to loved ones back home, said Army
Col. Brick T. Miller, U.S. Army Family, Morale, Welfare and
Recreation Command's deputy commander and chief of staff. The
in-house communications system, he added, also helps the military
to conserve Internet bandwidth.
Deployed servicemembers can access TroopTube to view their
children's stateside high school graduations, birthdays and other
notable family events, Miller said. Single Soldiers, he added, can
keep current with parents, siblings and friends back home.
Sites like TroopTube exemplify and provide "what the younger
Soldiers want today to be able to communicate with their families,"
Miller said. TroopTube helps to ease the minds of overseas-deployed
servicemembers, he said, while helping family members stay in
touch.
"We see it as a way of lowering the stress level," Miller said.
"This is a way of getting closer to real-time gratification, which
is what the Millennium Generation is used to."
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