Project Athena: A New Frontier in Sharing Afghanistan Vets’ Experiences Through Mapping

by Jen Woronow

We see the world around us through different gazes. Whether it is a strategic, birds-eye view or a close investigation at the ground level, multiple perspectives shape how we interpret information. No one vantage point reveals the entire picture. Maps can show where a journey has taken us and where we have yet to go, but can maps offer something in between?

For Nathan (Nate) Kehler, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Project ’44, that liminal space is found throughout the stories of veterans. The team’s newest release, Project Athena uses deep mapping to add a human viewpoint to the war in Afghanistan. Deep mapping is a multifaceted approach to understanding and representing a place that goes beyond traditional cartography.

Surveying the terrain and charting a course

Nate took me back to his time serving in the Canadian Armed Forces in 2009. He explained that his fascination with maps started when he went from being an armoured reconnaissance soldier with the Royal Canadian Dragoons to a Geomatics technician with 2 Combat Engineer Regiment working with military map data.

Nate’s tour in Afghanistan reinforced the importance of knowing the lay of the land in a threat environment. “I was just a young Trooper when I was in Afghanistan. I did not always know what the big picture was. Things would get chaotic, and I had no idea what was happening, why we were there, or what the end state was” says Nate.

Nate was not the only one dealing with ambiguity in the field. He continues, “Maybe someone was wondering why there were guys on the top of a hill with surveillance equipment. I was wondering what the hell they were doing with tanks going across the field hitting four IEDs in a row. It seemed absurd to me. Meanwhile, they probably thought we were just dog fucking up on top of the hill.”

Finding order in the chaos and uncertainty inspired Project Athena. The idea of many people documenting their perspectives to build a clearer picture was a starting point. Though Nate’s military duties were about mapping to anticipate what would happen next, he is now more interested in showing what occurred in the past. Even after he left the military, Nate was still interested in visually and temporally representing Afghanistan. By then, he had already started Project ‘44 and mapping Afghanistan seemed the next logical step.

Laying the groundwork for a new mission

Deep mapping lends itself well to the complex conflict in Afghanistan by allowing for multiple data layers. Project Athena began with data on Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), a frighteningly routine part of life in a post-9/11 battlespace. In the Project Athena site, you can view every IED strike in the area and then look more closely by clicking on the data point. This is where the project goes beyond a standard 2D map. Every IED location is tagged with metadata such as the date, the number of people killed in action (including allies, enemies, and civilians), and a summary of the event.

Nate emphasizes the importance of tagging stating “[veterans] want to see where that was and have that experience remembered. I need the human element in there. I want veterans to be able to plot down events that they took part in.”

Creating a diverse range of individual viewpoints for Project Athena is an ongoing collective effort. There is value in incorporating a variety of perspectives “whether it’s an IED strike, a route, or even a funny story” says Nate.

Those data points correlate into a more cohesive network of information. Project Athena illustrates how geography, time, and other elements make every veteran’s deployment unique. For example, Nate was in Afghanistan in 2009, a time when the greatest threats were IEDs. Someone serving on Operation Medusa in 2006 would have had a much more kinetic battle.

In the true spirit of collaboration, Project Athena proves the saying, “All of us are smarter than one of us.” It takes many voices to tell a story as geographically and chronologically expansive as Afghanistan.

Finding purpose and meaning in mapping

For some veterans, Project Athena is a tool that can potentially verify a life-changing event. Nate spoke of a former combat engineer who uses the site as a resource for helping soldiers receive medals owed to them by the Canadian military. Veterans seeking disability benefits for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, and other service-connected injuries can use Project Athena metadata to prove when and where they happened.

Though nation-states fight wars, it is individuals who make lasting changes. Project Athena reminds us that war has nuances that cannot be generalized or easily put into a binary. “At the strategic level, you can say things were a failure,” admits Nate. There was never really a mission end state. But when you get to the micro levels, there are many differences, and I hope they are lasting changes.”

Although Project Athena is an interactive community for veterans, it also serves as a knowledge mobilization tool for multiple audiences, including younger generations.

“I have kids myself,” says Nate. “How do I show them what war is? War is a broad term and World War II usually comes to their mind first. Afghanistan was a much different war where the enemy didn’t wear uniforms.”

The ability to look closely at the digital enmeshment of narratives, events, and people can add needed context and specificity to a war unlike any other before it.

Navigating the future of Project Athena

What does the future of Project Athena look like? In August, new routes were added to Kandahar and Kabul with improved image display features like zoom and pan view. The most exciting development is the moderation system allowing users to upload photos from their tour. Later iterations of the site may allow for embedded YouTube videos as well. On November 11, 2024, you can become an active part of a growing community by signing up for a user profile and submitting your images to the site.

Nate sees photos as a key element in the project since many veterans captured images on their tours. Afghanistan was the first digital war where cameras were widely available to personnel. During his 2009 tour, Nate took at least 700 photos, several displayed on the Project Athena site. In Project Athena, photos take on new life with the ability to connect them to time, place, and even other people.

With Project Athena becoming more collaborative with each update, you can anticipate some incredible images combined with greater interactivity. Users will soon be able to make and like comment posts, plus add stories. Other upcoming additions include expanded filtering and timeline capabilities. Soon, you can filter data by event type, such as IEDs or tactical infrastructure, and focus on specific occurrences during a tour.

Nate’s vision for the project is for users to share their photos and metadata from the site on social media platforms. The social media posts drive people back to Project Athena and encourage engagement through content contribution. As the site’s community builds over time, so will the diversity of the audience.

Engagement with the site and other users makes Project Athena more than a digital map. Your interactions such as likes, uploads, and comments will appear in your profile’s feed and influence what gets displayed on the site. One possible concept is a carousel-style album where the most liked photos appear with a description of the location and event. Clicking an album image invites you to explore more of the site.

It is this appeal to human curiosity that truly drives the project. Nate said “I want this to be a living, breathing document where people can add their experiences and access facts. I want everybody to be able to map here whether it is Americans, Canadians, British, French, Italians, or whoever. You have a whole country to fill in. The idea is to make the map as interconnected as possible.”

But the project does not end in Afghanistan. The newest additions to Project Athena are the proof of concept for enhancing Project ‘44 with similar features. By contributing to Project Athena, you will be instrumental in developing the next phase of Project ’44.

Though the future is uncertain, digital mapping gives us an immersive way to explore the past by sharing the unique experiences of veterans. Taking in the totality of a war that involved Canada from 2001 – 2014 is daunting, even overwhelming. Adding to this, the military is an institution that can sometimes feel rather impersonal and anonymous.

Only when we bring individuals into focus is Afghanistan more manageable to process analytically and psychologically. Deployments impacted entire families and communities. Some servicemembers never made it home while others returned as a different person struggling to reintegrate into the civilian world. Project Athena is an ongoing journey that tells those stories and promotes a greater understanding of the individuals they are about.

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Nathan Kehler, a former Master Corporal with 13 years of service in the Canadian Armed Forces and a tour in Afghanistan with the Royal Canadian Dragoons, has seamlessly transitioned his military operations and geomatics expertise into pioneering digital historical mapping. As the co-founder and leader of the Canadian Research and Mapping Association for six years, he has been instrumental in developing Project ’44, a groundbreaking digital map detailing the Second World War. Building on this success, Nathan is now leading Project Athena, an innovative initiative mapping the War in Afghanistan. His unique blend of frontline military experience and technical skill in cartography continues to redefine the way we engage with and understand military history.

Jen Woronow is an interdisciplinary scholar, blogger, and artist specializing in the sociology and visual culture of contemporary conflict. She holds an MA in International Security Studies from Trinity Washington University concentrating in intelligence and terrorism, and a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her digital knowledge mobilization project, The Jaunty Crow (and more recently, The Crow’s Perch podcast) explores the human side of war. Jen is originally from Maryland, USA and lives in Ontario, CA.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.