"Digital senders" speeding actions in Afghanistan

Infantry Magazine, Summer, 2002

Processing awards and other personnel records in faraway places is getting easier with the help of "digital senders," according to personnel officials supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

A digital sender from Fort Bragg is up and running in Uzbekistan, and two have been set up in Afghanistan. The number of digital senders should increase to 100 by the end of the year.

A digital sender looks like a fax machine and acts similarly in sending awards, evaluations, and other documents directly to a soldier's official military personnel file. A personnel section can send a Bronze Star award citation from the field one day and see it online the following day.

There are now 30 digital senders at Fort Lewis, Fort Bragg, Korea, Germany, and Afghanistan. A sender from Germany arrived recently in Kosovo to support 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, soldiers deployed there from Schweinfurt. And another is enroute to Kuwait to support soldiers there. The number of senders in the Army should reach 100 by the end of the year.