Soldiers calling home from Gulf get affordable long distance

Posted 8:19AM on Monday 10th February 2003 ( 22 years ago )

FORT BENNING - Across the seas in the Persian Gulf, it's usually difficult for soldiers to keep in touch with their families at an affordable phone rate. That's not the case anymore. Troops can now make calls from their base to Fort Benning and the surrounding area for free, and they're also saving money on long distance calls. Prepaid phone cards, which many of the troops took with them to the desert, make calling home easy. But sometimes, soldiers were only getting about 30 minutes of phone time out of their cards for every 100 minutes purchased when they dialed from pay phones scattered throughout the region. Paul Yates, director of information management at Fort Benning, urges troops to use government bulk lines to call home. "You may have to wait a little longer to use the phone," Yates said. "But it can sure save the soldier a lot of money." The system is fueled by volunteers at the Fort Benning call center. Just a week after Yates opened the call center, volunteer operators have been taking an average of 300 calls a day. "And it's conceivable that number could grow to 3,000 calls a day once all our troops are in place overseas," he said. A soldiers can get free calls by using a military phone to dial the Fort Benning call center. He tells a volunteer operator his name, where he's calling from and the number he'd like to dial. If it's a local call, the operator will simply dial the number and wait for the parties to connect. If a soldier is making a long-distance call, he tells the operator his name and phone card or credit card number before the operator places the call. "It's certainly a lot cheaper than calling direct from a phone booth in Kuwait," Yates said. Any American troop can get cheap calls as long as they use the military network, no matter where they deployed from or to, Yates said. More help is needed. "We'd like to talk with anyone willing to spend an hour or two answering phone calls from overseas and forward them to the soldiers' loved ones," Yates said.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/2/183348