Lisa Carlton’s father was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War when he was 18. As Lisa grew up, no one discussed his time in combat and she became accustomed to the silence surrounding the topic. But when her brother was deployed to Baghdad in 2005, she realized the gravity of that silence.

“I started thinking about how it’s a new generation of guys and gals coming home from combat and how we have to make sure that we’re vigilant about not making the same mistakes we made with the Vietnam generation,” said Carlton, Ph.D. student in communication studies. “We have to make sure the silence that befell that generation is not going to choke the next.”

Carlton is looking at how changes in technology and media are affecting the way soldiers document war and combat.

In fall 2010, Carlton became involved with the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum’s Veterans History Project, listening to and archiving taped interviews for The Library of Congress. During the project, Carlton began to consider the dramatic change in the use of media and digital media during combat deployments.

“My brother had hundreds and hundreds of pictures and video. It was a complete visual archive of his experiences, while my dad had only a couple of still photographs,” Carlton said. “That was interesting to me; this new generation is capturing war in a different way.”

Carlton has since interviewed members of the Iowa National Guard who had served in Egypt and Iraq in the first Gulf War. In August 2011, Carlton traveled to Okinawa, Japan, a major deployment hub, to speak with pre- and post-combat U.S. Marines about their use of visual media while at war.

Carlton said soldiers tend to use photography mostly at the beginning of their deployment in a style similar to that of a tourist.

“It’s this new landscape that they’re orienting themselves to and they do that through photography,” she said. The soldiers capture photos of themselves next to features, such as a camel or the desert, that anchor them to the specific location.

Facebook and Skype are also popular with those on active duty. But while more access to friends and family is welcome, Carlton said some admit it can cause additional stress. A soldier can become distracted by worries about a child’s fight at school or a clogged garbage disposal as they negotiate intense combat situations.

Carlton originally received her B.A. in journalism from Indiana University, which she said proved helpful when reaching out to veterans.