PDT&C 2017; 46(1): 17–31 Edward A. Benoit, III* Digital V-Mail and the 21st Century Soldier: Preliminary Findings from the Virtual Footlocker Project DOI 10.1515/pdtc-2017-0023 through email, video calls, and social media, while also Abstract: Changes in technology challenge the preserva- facilitating the creation of digital photographs and video tion of personal military communication and doc- of deployed military life. As with other digital information, umentary records. The Virtual Footlocker Project ad- the sheer amount of records expands annually, however dresses this issue through the development of an open- the amount of physical/analog records rapidly decreases. source, cross-platform system or application for capturing Lacking a tangible record, military families will not have and preserving the personal communication and doc- the same heirlooms to pass down, potentially eventuating umentary record of the modern soldier. This article dis- in the loss of military history. cusses the preliminary findings of the project’s survey of The Virtual Footlocker Project (VFP) addresses these veterans’ and active-duty personnel’s use of communica- issues through the development of an open-source, cross- tion and documentary methods. platform application for capturing and preserving the personal communication and documentary record of the Keywords: Digital Preservation, Military Records, modern soldier. Designed specifically for their unique Personal Archives needs, such a system will support veterans and active- duty personal. In its entirety, the VFP consists of three distinct phases: survey, development, and distribution. 1 Introduction The goal of the initial phase is identifying the types of communication methods used by modern soldiers during Since the Revolutionary War, U. S.-deployed military deployments and while at home stations. Additionally, members relied on postal communication for a vital con- this phase seeks to understand the types of personal doc- nection with their home. Even with the adaptation of new umentary records created, and what storage and dis- technologies, most soldiers primarily wrote and received tribution platforms soldiers prefer. The second phase fo- 1 letters. Additionally, soldiers would document their cuses on the initial development of the VFP application, wartime experiences in personal journals, photographs, alpha and beta testing, and preparing the application for and home movies (as technology allowed). These personal distribution. During the final phase, the application will records often became precious family heirlooms as mem- be launched and distributed to veterans and active-duty ’ ories of their loved one s service to the county. Over time, personnel. This article describes the preliminary findings some would donate the records to archival repositories. of the first phase of the VFP, and in doing so addresses the Researchers would use these rich personal records to ex- following research questions: plain the military experience. RQ1: What modes of communication and types of Over the past twenty years, the introduction of the documentary records have military members been using/ Internet, digital cameras, and mobile digital devices pre- creating during the past ten years? sented significant challenges to the ongoing preservation RQ2: What is the difference, if any, between military of personal military records. Digital technologies allow for members’ non-deployed and deployed modes of commu- quick and easy communication with military personnel nication and types of documentary records? I begin with a contextualization of the research within 1 Throughout the article, the term soldiers will be used to describe the broader literature of contemporary military records the sample population rather than always including the full descrip- and personal information management. The methodology tion of veterans, soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors. section describes the research design for the study, and is followed by a description of the resulting data. I conclude *Corresponding author: Dr. Edward Benoit, School of Library & with a discussion of the findings and the future directions Information Science, Louisiana State University 269 Coates Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, E-Mail: [email protected] of the VFP. 18 Edward A. Benoit, Digital V-Mail and the 21st Century Soldier 2 Literature Review partly due to the controversial nature of the war, but also due to its contemporary proximity whereby families still placed significant sentimental value on the materials. The issues integrated in this study are grounded in three Stevens notes the importance of the donation process in areas of literature: personal information management healing the veterans’ long-term anguish by allowing ve- (PIM), military archives, and non-LIS military commu- terans to tell their stories. The Wisconsin Historical So- nication research. Increased reliance on born-digital re- ciety project also included several letters that were taped, cords provided a renewed interest in PIM research, fo- a format specific to the Vietnam War. While most Vietnam- cused specifically on the intersection of PIM and archival War-era collections focus on analog materials, Harrison theories. Several authors summarize the PIM literature discusses the importance and challenges of preserving the with specific attention to its connection to archival prac- computer data from the war. He discusses the untapped tice. Bass, for example, notes the addition of “long-term records available to researchers, and challenges archivists preservation of personal digital information” to the tradi- of the era (the late 1980s) to begin addressing the emer- tional PIM technological functions as a specifically archi- ging issues. val intervention (52). Furthermore, he discusses how PIM Soyka and Wilczek offer the most relevant archival concepts assist us with appraisal of digital records since research for the VFP in their recent article on military re- determining value now requires active intervention by cords from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation archivists during the creation process. Since appraisal Enduring Freedom (OEF). Although focusing on official requires an understanding of value, it is also important to records, Soyka and Wilczek highlight dispersed and vo- realign archival value with personal value as identified by luminous modern military records. They discuss the PIM research. In doing so, archivists can advocate for the challenges personal milblogs, or military blogs, placed on importance of digital preservation. As he states: the community. They say, “Because soldier-authored Never before have the records that constitute a personal fonds or milblogs are, for the most part, scattered, unofficial crea- collection been so widely distributed across multiple locations, tions of individuals, they are not captured as part of offi- and as shown in this paper, PIM research elicits key information cial documentation of the experiences of the wars in Iraq on how and where individuals preserve their valuable records in both online and offline environments. This is especially ger- and Afghanistan. The varied form, structure, and pre- mane in an era where personal digital records are being kept by sentation of these informal creations also blocks their non-familial third parties more for their commercial value than potential capture, preservation, access, and use” (Soyka for their cultural and historical value. (Bass, 75) and Wilczek, 184). Soyka and Wilczek conclude that any complete documentary record of the wars will invariably Cushing also connects archival principles to PIM research, involve multiple repositories and the inclusion of personal specifically to the work of Catherine C. Marshall and military records. Adrian Cunningham. A vital difference between analog While not focused on preservation, PIM, or archival archives and digital PIM is that “the computer desktop approaches, several additional studies from outside dis- does not provide a decent central space for the valuable ciplines explore the nature of modern personal military documents as the shoebox [under the bed] did” (Cushing, communication and documentation. An earlier study by 305). The same could be said for the military footlocker. Schumm et al., analyzed the uses of various communica- The VFP responds to Reyes’s call for archivists (and other tion methods for deployed peacekeepers in the 1990s. LIS professionals) to educate the public on the fragility of They found that married personnel used all communica- digital records, on issues with social-media-based storage, tion methods at higher rates, and that peacekeepers pre- and on how to begin digital preservation and format mi- ferred telephone calls for more engaged communication. gration themselves. More recent studies focused on activities during OIF and As noted earlier, military records and archives have a OEF. Many of these analyze the increased availability of long relationship. Early archival literature, for example, communication technologies, and their impact on main- discusses the indexing of military records by Major Gen- taining spousal and child relationships. Cigrang et al. eral Fred C. Ainsworth who argued against the historians’ found that a spousal relationship’s condition prior to de- use of personal military accounts since they were not in- ployment dictated the communication rate during de- tended to be public documents (Riepma). The Vietnam ployment. Durham notes the new challenges soldiers face War