Another thing that comes out of some of the photos is a time truly left in the past, when family members and nearly entire towns would travel with the men to their battlegrounds.
Already, it is possible for the home front to directly support the troops with logistics and supportive letters.
But couldn't this be expanded somehow for more direct support, the way families and towns would travel to the battlefields to support their soldiers?
Civilians already support the war effort by writing about it and mobilizing support online or directly sending supplies to the troops in the field.
Why can't we wiki up the routine patrols not related to specific missions underway in order to create an online reserve of amateur analysts who flag suspicious activity? Have the software analyze the amateur notation to screen out duplicates and flag anything that seems to warrant attention for an actual military analyst to look at. Some type of screening would be necessary to keep the noise level down.
I'm not sure how you screen those who volunteer and make such help useful, but surely we can make more use of this type of talent than we could make use of old pots and pans in metal collection drives in World War II. At the very least, we'd get more of our population involved when we simply don't need a draft for mass manpower mobilization.
I admit I don't know how this could work. But community support is not a new thing. With the Internet and the military using reachback to keep many support functions out of the theater or back home, it seems like an opportunity for base communities to support their active comonent units sent to war or for communities to support their Guard or Reserve units sent overseas, at the very least.
