Text messaging Army's indispensable tool in war

Hear, hear! Text messaging is helping Filipino soldiers to better communicate in the fight against 36-year-old communist insurgency. Apparently, the sms is overcoming a communications handicap in one of the world's poorly equipped armies.

For most of our field operatives, text messaging is an indispensable tool that is tried and tested in their operations,

said recently retired Lieutenant General Romeo Dominguez, the former chief of the Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom). With thumbs pressing the keypads of their mobile phones, the only modern light gadget available in the battlefield, soldiers were able to send, receive and swap messages containing intelligence and operations information in just a matter of seconds, he said. Dominguez, in Friday's turnover rites at the Nolcom headquarters here, said his men protected the identities of their informants and contacts by using women's names as codes stored in their phones' directories ( That’s a smart disinformation method I must agree!). But there's a downside to this new mode of communicating, he said.

The possibility of being duped is always present. Most of the time, though, the information were verified and proved valuable,

he said.
[via Inq7.net]