Communication: The Misdirected Warfare Part 1

Katele Kalumba
Nov 7 · 3 min read

Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! You have tango’s on your six!”

Most of us know, or at least have heard of the military alphabet in some way. We hear it being used in war and actions movies, video games, and even in comic books and novels. But most people have no idea why it is used, how or why it was formed, or why it has become one of the most effective forms of tactical radio communication – not only in the U.S. – but also across the globe.

I’ve come to understand that communication is one of the most underrated yet one of the most important skills everyone should work on to get through life. If you play video games like Call of Duty or watch war movies, you’d notice that you have to grasp the jargon being used to understand what’s going on so that you’re not killed nor caught off-guard.

Textbook definitions aside, what do you define communication as? What do you think is involved? Do you think it’s important? Do you regard yourself as a good communicator?

My personal definition of communication is the ability to transfer a thought from one person to another. As mentioned in my bio, one of my Majors is Mass Communication and we have something called Models of Communication. Don’t worry, I’m not about to bore you with a lecture 🙄 but I will get an extract from it for you to understand something. There’s a model called Laswell’s Model and this model states that for communication to take place there must be a sender, a message, a medium through which you will send this message, a receiver and an effect. Why I love this model is the fact that at the end of the communication, there must be an effect.

How effective is your communication? Do people understand what you say? Does what you say impact them? Do you listen to what others have to say? You need to understand that there’s a difference between hearing and listening. When you listen, you are engaged in the conversation and have given someone your attention. Most people these days don’t take time to listen to what someone has to say. People hear you just to respond and not to understand. Before you respond, you must understand. That makes things easier. Why don’t you try listening today? Did you know that listening doesn’t necessarily mean you have to respond to what is being said? Have you ever had so much on your mind, need someone to speak to and all you want them to do is listen? We don’t even seek advice sometimes, all we want is for someone to listen. This is equally part of communication.

One thing that makes this a misdirected warfare is that people attack each other instead of the issue at hand. I’ve spoken to people that say they have a difficult time expressing themselves and would even say they are introverts. Introvert or not, I believe communication must be achieved and one of my secrets for people like this is the method of Agreement. Here, you just have to help the person open up on their terms and be willing to be patient. One time I realized that sometimes my girlfriend wouldn’t be in the best of moods and sometimes it would affect the way she spoke to me and I would retaliate😂. So one day I spoke to her and told her that for us to communicate better when that happens and to avoid any problems, whenever she’s in a bad mood she should let me know and that way I’d understand and know how exactly to talk that day and not take offense at anything. Guess what? It worked like magic! Even when we disagree on something and there’s tension in the moment, we agreed to speak about it when we are both calm because we understand that communication cannot take place when tensions see high. I could give many examples but I’ll leave you with these for now since this is a whole section of communication and will be talked about in another part.

I think this is enough for the first part. I’ll leave you with those questions and will post a second part specifically addressed to those who don’t know how to open up.

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