It's hard to believe that reality TV shows with stars like Honey Boo Boo and the Kardashian's can teach the U.S. Air Force something about monitoring tens of thousands of hours of video. But that's what's happening.

The Air Force is using software used by some reality TV show production companies and sports networks, like ESPN, to tag specific frames or clips of video fed in from U.S. military drones around the world. In dark, cavernous buildings, sure-eyed intelligence analysts are now able to go back and quickly pinpoint that material as soon as they need to see it again.

The software can be invaluable when time is of the essence and lives are on the line in a battlefield, according to Air Force officials.

CNN Pentagon Correspondent, Chris Lawrence visited an Air Force intelligence facility at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, where airmen monitor some of the thousands of hours of drone video to get a sense of how all of this works.