Article
Communication and Communion
March 8, 2019
“Pray without ceasing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16
In the Spring of 1991 after the end of the Gulf War, I was invited to attend a symposium of military officers, military contractors, and academia to discuss the communication problems faced during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Several of my college classmates in the reserves had served during the war. So my friends and I had been glued to media outlets to witness the unprecedented coverage of the war. The picture of the military by the media was impressive, especially the homing missiles and smart bombs. But I would be shocked to learn how many technical obstacles these men and women faced during their action.
The buildup of the conflict was massive and swift. Because of the magnitude of the coalition forces and the speed of deployment, military command infrastructure was sparse, and only a shell of what was required for command and control was able to be deployed. Furthermore, the military had begun to implement microcomputer technology into the theater without consideration of the joint forces working with different technological protocols and procedures. To oversimplify, the Navy could not talk to the Air Force in joint strike forces. Similarly, ground forces could not communicate with air assets in the theater, and some units were not able to receive battle commands over radio traffic because of limited frequency receivers.
To put in perspective, Navy pilots would have to carry disks with preselected targets for sorties without the option of redirection to secondary or new objectives in real time. The Air Force could not communicate orders or intelligence to Navy pilots in real time. The Air Force had to beg and borrow to provide their pilots with the technology necessary for real-time updates from intelligence assets (Moore). As a result, pilots ignored many target rich environments. Furthermore, there were no effective measures for special forces in ground positions to relay positions of hidden targets to pilots overhead; hence, the great Scud hide and seek game was consistently in the news without any successful preventative airstrikes.
Communication relays began to fail as new software was incompatible with hardware. Central command had to resort to using soldiers as couriers with floppy disks to shuttle key intelligence and battle plans to various other department heads. Engineers from the military and the private sector began working to solve these significant issues almost immediately (US House Committee on Armed Services).
Some ground forces were equipped with inadequate communication devices. Some of these devices would only receive preselected frequencies which were not used by command and control for those theaters. It has been documented that officers would have to yell orders to artillery positions and if those positions were beyond shouting distance, those assets were dormant (Sessions). Other tragic cases involved friendly-fire whereby ground forces could not communicate exact locations to pilots overhead. With the fighting intense and at close range, pilots could not distinguish allies and the enemy.
Furthermore, fuel and supply assets were unable to receive proper communication in real time. The air assets had difficulty in arranging mid-air refueling. Ground forces moving at much faster paces than anticipated by superiors were sometimes hundreds of kilometers ahead of the preselected locations for resupply (US House Memorandum). The military assets were in danger of becoming a parking lot in the desert even amid unparalleled success in some of the most massive tank battles ever fought.
Had the air campaign not had the resounding success in softening the entrenched Iraqi forces, the Gulf War could have been much more deadly and prolonged. When the fog of war had cleared, the U.S. and coalition forces had been spared potential disaster because of the air superiority (Gordon).
The main point of the symposium was to begin the dialogue necessary to fix these and other problems. Before Congressional hearings and further studies could get into full swing, the military and contractors were hustling to get input from academia to study the issues and offer meaningful and lasting solutions to prevent the inadequacies suffered during the Gulf War.
“Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 18:1
As Christians, we must take communication seriously. Christ commanded us to pray at all times. I believe He meant for us to pray consistently and persistently. Too often we fail to communicate with God about life and the challenges we face with it. As a result, we lie dormant, ineffective and miss the opportunities God has placed in our daily path. Frequent communication with God is essential for effective success in spiritual warfare.
Additionally, it is essential for us to communicate with each other.
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” 1 Corinthians 10:16
Christ gave us the sacrament of Communion. We are to assemble and participate together in remembering His sacrifice and our redemption. The Greek word for communion, koinonia
, also can be translated, “communication” or “communicate” (Philemon 1:6; Hebrews 13:16).
Fellowship together in Christ’s sufferings allows us to bond in His love into a sufficient force for His kingdom. All too often we selfishly look at the church and her members to meet our needs. If we are to be a family in Christ, we are to look at the needs of others. Christ suffered to meet our needs. Likewise, we should be willing to endure hardship to meet the needs of others.
Spiritual communication will change our attitudes and future. It helps to remind ourselves of the sinner’s prayer. When by faith we pray orally for God’s forgiveness, by our words and His work of salvation, we speak the Life of God into our hearts. Just as God spoke the world into existence, our cry to God speaks His power into our lives to bring eternal life. There is no salvation without communication. On the cross, Christ re-established those lines of communication for us. It is us up to us to maintain them.
“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11
Moore, Molly, War Exposed Rivalries, Weaknesses in Military
, Washington Post, June 10, 1991, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/06/10/war-exposed-rivalries-weaknesses-in-military/b9382685-ca58-4d30-9b0b-c8e3ee96b8a0/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7827b6dacc69
U.S. Congress. House of Representatives. Committee on Armed Services. Intelligence Successes and Failures in Operations Desert Shield/Storm.
103rd Congress, 1st Session, Print #5, August 16, 1993, from https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a338886.pdf.
Sessions, Sterling D., Jones, Carl R. Interoperability: A Desert Storm Case Study.
Institute for National Strategic Studies, July 1993, from https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a271674.pdf.
U.S. Congress, House of Representatives. Committee on Armed Services. Memorandum: Interim Report For Members of Committee on Armed Services
, March 30, 1992, from http://es.rice.edu/projects/Poli378/Gulf/aspin_rpt.html.
Gordon, Michael R., Schmitt, Eric. After the War; Radios and Mine Sweepers: Problems in the Gulf,
The New York Times, March 28, 1991, fromhttps://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/28/world/after-the-war-radios-and-mine-sweepers-problems-in-the-gulf.html
Share this Article
STAY UP TO DATE
GET WMA's Latest
Receive regular updates from the World Missions to Asia, and get a heads up on upcoming events.
Newsletter Subscriber
Related Articles
Related Articles
—THIS WAS A GREAT TESTIMONY—
Our Mission is to Grow Christianity in Every Nation With Speed and Excellence
Join us in Our Fall Giving campaign....Let's make a difference!