The latest gear provides Blue Force Tracker (icons showing where all friendly troops are) capability, as well as wireless updates of maps and transmission of video. The latter is important for commanders and intelligence operatives, who can make key decisions, or analyses, more quickly if they can see what the troops in combat are seeing. This is not meant to be used for micromanagement, but to share experience, as well as information. If the troops come across something they are not sure of, sending a vid back to the boss or the intel pukes, is likely to get a better answer to what they are looking at.
But that data could also be used to persecute American soldiers. That war is Hell is no mere platitude. But for Leftist lawyers who can spend years poring over what happened in a fraction of a second, what is normal on a battlefield can be portrayed as war crimes. And it will all be recorded:
So what do we do with situations that in the past would have never been seen? Incidents that officers might have overlooked based on the people involved being good soldiers who made a mistake or acted criminally but under extenuating circumstances? Incidents that nobody saw but a small group or even an individual responsible? People who might carry guilt the rest of their lives yet try to live good lives to make up for snapping in a moment of weakness?
How do we get our military to win when human rights groups might get a hold of tapes that show fatal mistakes and even isolated crimes?
We want our troops to fight clean but when even a good war like World War II would be flyspecked in our day, how do we deal with all this recorded material and how do we bring our troops home with their heads held high over a war well fought and won?
I don't have any answers at the moment, but we need to think about how we will treat our soldiers when their every step in an inherently chaotic environment is scrutinized for errors or wrongdoing. Perhaps years after the events.
Years ago I worried about this trend, and I still don't know how we can protect our troops who are just doing what they are supposed to do.
