Communications with Home

I am writing this as I am on hold with a Neiman Marcus representative back in the USA. As I am waiting I am entering my 5th minute on holdI am hoping that this call will not cut off after 20 minutes as is frequently the case when making what is called a 'morale call' back the States on the Defense Switched Network (DSN). DSN is basically a military telephone network. The purpose of the 20 minute cutoff is of course to allow the largest number of troops to call home on this free network. DSN telephones are not readily available with most phones being located in the offices of important ranking officials. Unfortunately that means that the lower your rank, the less likely you will have access to this free service. That is an issue because a) a junior service member might need more contact with home (due to inexperience/lack or previous deployments) and b) they have less income to spend on telephone charges.
One alternative to DSN in theatre is calling card call (AT&T or SPAWAR) used at a phone bank. With the AT&T card you are getting 1/3 the minutes you paid for e.g. a 550 minute phone card gives you 180 minutes. The call quality is hit or miss with frequent echoes and dropped calls. Also, the calling centers are invariably converted shipping containers where you sometimes have to talk over 20 other folks making calls. The cubicles are full of graffiti and the phones are beat up. I'm sure a large part of the communicable diseases here can be traced back to the phones.
A third alternative to call home is to get a local cell phone. The local vendors will issue prepaid calling cards to go with the phones which have Afghan telephone numbers. Texting someone in the states costs 50 cents per text so you can imagine the minute charge for voice calls. I had a patient last year in Iraq who had a $900 monthly cell phone bill! Rumor has it that the cell phone company has Taliban ties and that they can essentially monitor cell phone communications.
Given the time difference with the US (9.5-12.5) hours the evenings and nights are the busiest call times here. It is not uncommon for the lines to be jammed so you have to try many times to get through and the likelihood of a dropped call is high.
A final method of communication is Skype. Despite our poor internet connection speed (64-128kb/s download; 32-64kb/s upload) one is able to do video calls with home during off peak times. The image is grainy and prone to getting bogged down but it nonetheless offers the ability to see family once in a while. Voice over Skype works well. Mind you, internet is not universally available on the Kandahar Air Field and is virtually non-existent on the smaller bases.
Of note, most communications (aside from cell phones) are one-way i.e. family members back home cannot reliably call the service member when they need to. That brings up the issue of whether instant communications is a benefit or detriment to the war effort. Already the military has to enforce a communications blackout for 12-24 hours after a US fatality so that news of the death does not reach family (via instant communications) before the military has the chance to make the formal announcement. What I see as a problem for some soldiers is being expected (self-generated or generated by family back home) to communicate daily. When the long work day ends here (depending on your job and location it may never end) the day in the US is just beginning and soldier may be expected to switch hats from forward-deployed war fighter to spouse, significant other, extended family financial supporter. In that role they often need to tackle problems back home from bills, to home maintenance, to relationship problems. The psychic toll of not being able to unwind at the end of the day can be significant. In fact the majority of 'combat stress' cases I saw in Iraq last year were not combat related at all but rather 'home-front' stressors.
Could fights and stress be reduced if folks had to wait to weeks to exchange correspondence? Would people back home be more independent if they couldn't rely on daily communications from the deployed family member? Would writing a letter (instead of an instant message or a phone call) lead to less conflict by eliminating impulsivity?