I used to use myspace all the time to keep in touch with my son.....so if he deploys again, this is awesome.

More facts about this, from my good friend, whos company actually is a sponsor of this site, Aetna!

"At Aetna, we want to thank our military heroes and their families for the sacrifices they make," said Tom Bernatavitz, vice president of Aetna Federal Plans. "This is just one small way we can help show our appreciation and support." Aetna's Federal Government, TriCare and the Central Valley Initiative business areas each contributed to the sponsorship.

Websites for Heroes is a collaborative effort by California-based DigitalPost Interactive and Caliber Media Group. Corporate and individual sponsors are paying for the service for 12 months. Families apply at the website and are subsidized. After this first year, families will be charged $99 a year for the ad-free service.

"As a Silver-level sponsor, Aetna is helping to connect more frequently and on a much deeper level than ever before," said Vietnam veteran Terry Gniffke, president of Caliber Media Group. "These sites allow a service member near-instant communication with loved ones."

During deployment in Iraq, Marine Capt. Patrick Byrne stayed in touch with his four children and wife, Kursten, who live at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, through the family's websiteforheros.com site.

"When Patrick was deployed, each day the kids picked out their favorite pictures for daddy, and he got to see everything we did," Kursten said. "He was connected to what we're doing back home. More important, when Patrick had a chance to call home, he could look at the calendar to see if we were at home. I never missed any of his calls."

I'm a big fan of circumventing the Army network... I mean, DOING WHAT'S RIGHT!!!

Anyway, a couple ways you can keep in touch easy TraumaMo-Momma.

Chat - a couple things. Most morale type network hubs overseas allow access to Yahoo and MSN chat. If not, get yourselves some gMail accounts and you can chat live through the military's secured network.

Pics - DO NOT USE Photobucket. Use ImageShack or just eMail them. Either of those ways, it will show up through the secure network.

Video - Break.com and stage6.com (prefered) both allow streaming video through secured network at this time.

Files - I'm not sure if any file sharing/hosting sites are blocked, except for ANY SITE that deals with torrents or hacks. I always use ripway.com and it works fine through secure net.

If you use any other sites, be sure to check them for pr0n OR any type of adult content that pops up. SecureNet has been pretty strick lately about blocking sites with even adult ads.

Besides this, I'll even offer to test for you. If you have any sites you normally use that you might be worried about not working, PM them to me and on Tuesday I'll check them out for ya.

Why thank you Sugar Booger.

My gf's son is deploying for sure, to Africa. Weird as my son got back from there and he may be going now where HER son went.

I did myspace him up until he came home in August. I never saw the site pulled.

They did pull it for a week when two of his new Marine friends were killed a few wks after they got there. I freaked as I couldn't talk to him. I got alot of comfort seeing ONLINE NOW. TraumaSon never said what happened and they locked the base down for a few days...Hmmmm. But he was shook up as he was out with them the nite before. Selfish me was glad he was not out with them the next day.

I did AIM as well as he could do that.