My post generated more noise than I expected, most likely due to a blogging by John Robb himself.  To that, all I can say is: wow.

@Neil: While other commentors bring up the several problems that relying on mobile phones in the AOR will cause, this discussion does show the power of the cloud.  These handsets don’t calculate much themselves, but have access to  a massive network of servers, satellites, and other end users.  I have some other thoughts on why we can’t “wait on a committee,” which I will bore you all with at a later date.

@Joel: Completely right, of course.  Use in the AOR is, well, rather unlikely.  On second look I didn’t mention it in the original post, but I was not imagining deployed use.  I was considering more for the urban guerrilla (frankly, this was a half-joking idea until I realized how easy a functional system would be with COTS parts).  If Cory Doctorow ever leads the revolution, for example, he could coordinate over Twitxr from his hot air baloon.

@mystikphish: I’ve use my Pearl for a year now to varying degrees of abuse, including three weeks of field training.  You’re right–it wouldn’t hold up to extended abuse.  See above comment.  You’re also correct about the barrel-cam on the Land Warrior load out.  I do, however, think that a little handset is less likely to give you away than an M16 muzzle with a camera on it–have you seen the pictures of those things?  That’s a big frigging camera.

Good call on police application.  You’re right, it would be interesting to see.  I, of course, was thinking more OPFOR use, but it is useful either way.

@MOGS: Well, he was a cadet.  2LT selects are only right 70% of the time.  He’ll get the other 30% when he graduates UPT.

Maybe I’m a little biased, considering I had a friend get his face shredded by an IED while he was working with the Army Corps of Engineers.  Consider as well that in less than two years, I’ll be training to deploy myself.  My chances of deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan within my first five years of service (not including time at the Academy) are pretty darn high.

But I firmly believe that I can be forgiven for thinking these guys are frigging unbelievable.

Here’s the short story: Next year, 48 Foreign Service Officer positions come open to serve in Baghdad.  In the Green Zone- the air conditioned heart of the city, working in one of the most protected embassies in the world.

48 positions.  There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 FSOs eligible for the positions.

They can’t find 50 men and women to serve their country in theatre when the chips are down.  What.  The.  Hell.

We’ve talked before on this blog about how dangerous it is for the Armed Forces to be clearing rubble and performing other tasks that aren’t normally considered Army-proof.  Now we have an inkling as to why: No one else wants to go.

In the interests of fairness: there are a few military personnel who have denied service in Iraq.  One is currently on hold before his court martial.  Another got a bad conduct discharge and was busted a few ranks.  In the UK, a doctor was put in prison for refusing service.

Someone else who thinks this is ridiculous.

It was only a matter of time, I suppose. Rock and roll was the original music of the younger generation, and it has had to make some room for rap as the decades have progressed. Classifying them together is an interesting move, but I’m all for it. Thoughts?