SAN JUAN, P.R., - With the recent earthquake destroying so much of Haiti's infrastructure, communication between military units remains vital to supporting the relief effort.
A readily available chat client is being used to relay critical information between the services and proving to be a powerful communication tool.
Defense Connect Online is similar to many commercial chat clients. It has different virtual chat rooms where groups can congregate and disseminate information; however, these chat rooms are filled with military members from every service including those from unified commands.
"This is the first time I've seen anything like this," said 1st Lt. Tirso Peña, a navigator from the 156th Airlift Wing who is working in the Puerto Rico National Guard joint operations center. "We're able to see all this information and requests for support and disseminate the pertinent information down to the individual units."
One such instance, said Peña, occurred when a Navy P-3 Orion was trying to communicate with Army units on the ground. He said the radio frequency information for the Army unit was relayed to the P-3 via the chat room saving the Sailors valuable time searching channel by channel.
Other uses for the chat room involve getting supplies to the people who need it most. Peña said he saw a request from units on the ground for food, water and medical supplies for an orphanage that hadn't seen any relief since the quake hit.
"We were able to funnel that information to our Puerto Rico National Guard units in the Dominican Republic who were able to load a [HH-60] Blackhawk helicopter and get those supplies to the 20 or so orphans."
The DCO program fits a unique set of circumstances since the earthquake devastated the telecommunications infrastructure but left some Internet connectivity. It is also an efficient way to organize information by audience, mission or geographic location.
"I've seen the system be used to relay information such as flight times from Puerto Rico to Port-au-Prince, Haiti and to help plan missions to extract a little girl with internal bleeding," said Peña. "It's one more tool to get aid to the people who need it most."