Technology connects modern military families

Our campus has many students from many walks of life from all over the country, so it is not surprising when I tell you Fort Campbell has also provided us with many students, bringing diversity and their experiences to the classroom and campus. They are spouses, soldiers and their children.

As an Army spouse, I can tell you we have come a long way, baby. For those of you who are tender and young, that is the tag line for a cigarette campaign. It is also the truth.

Technology, whether you major in it or use it on a daily basis to do your work, has made amazing strides. I wanted to use a personal experience as an example.

When my husband's uncle went to Vietnam, the family was lucky to get word every six months, and the mail was neither reliable nor dependable. They worried, waited and hoped.

Many soldiers and their families will tell you stories of their wives being pregnant and their child walking to them later on, not ever having laid eyes on them before.

Forget phone calls, those were a precious privilege reserved for serious situations, such as death. As hard as that is to imagine, any military family will tell you, "It's just what we do." I am among those ranks and consider myself and my fellow military family members extremely fortunate to have technology.

Today, families still worry, wait and hope, but there are ways to bring pieces of life the soldier misses to them and the ability to see the face of loved ones.

Thirty years ago there were no computers for IM or Web cam, now my husband and I use my Web cam on a daily basis. He can send messages from his computer to my phone. I can send digital photos and video of our children. Even though we sometimes complain and a package or two have been misplaced, the mail is reliable.

Technology has improved morale for service members and the family. We sometimes get so caught up in our daily lives and take technology for granted; we forget how lucky we are and fail to appreciate the foresight of genius' like Tim Berners-Lee. By the way, thank you Tim for the World Wide Web. Oh and Cambridge University, thank you for the Web cam. Can you do something about the nine chins it makes me look like I have? Then I would truly be in awe.

There is something touching about my children holding up their school pictures and report cards to the camera to show their dad.

I also get perverse satisfaction when they fight on the cam. Why should he be immune to the bickering? When he "sees" home whether it's that shirt you always wear or the coffee mug you usually drink from on the desk, these small rituals make them feel connected. It's also my hope he won't notice the new furniture I bought until I can break it to him gently. It's something incredibly amazing we take for granted on a daily basis, including me, until it hits home.

I guess we lose our wonderment of technology because it keeps coming hard and fast. We are jaded and demanding in our expectations of the next big think. But sometimes its the little things like the moment that need to be savored.

So the next time you are texting, "Web-caming," IMing, sending documents or reading an e-mail you got from across the country, stop and think about just how far we have come.

Last but not least, computer programming and technology majors, if you could do something about the chin thing, I know I would not be the only person in gratitude.