Chapter 3 - Technologies of Proximity

Summary

Fears surrounding Dear John letters have often encoded larger concerns – in civilian society and military communities – about new communications technologies that purport to bridge the gap between “over here” and “over there”: the home front and the war zone. From reel-to-reel tape recordings in Vietnam to cellular telephony, email, and social media in Iraq and Afghanistan, the double-edged character of technological innovation has fueled anxiety about the sustainability of love in wartime, and the lethality of Dear Johns in particular. Many observers of wartime’s emotional landscape have equated speed of delivery with a more devastating coup de grâce. As the digital age has brought service personnel and civilians into more continuous contact, “home” has come to appear (in the eyes of some military commentators) less a point of sentimental anchorage than a dangerous source of toxicity. But this chapter cautions against uncritical endorsement of a “ballistic” theory of communication that equates physical velocity with psychological impact. Servicemen in past wars found slow-moving mail – or protracted silence – just as hard to process as texts zapped in real-time across continents.