Strategic And Tactical Disadvantages Of Soldier Video

Posted By Blackfive • [March 23, 2005]

Joe Katzman of Winds of Change sent me a link which got me thinking about a recent interview I had.

I was recently interviewed for a well-known magazine regarding blogs and how technology has changed how deployed military folks communicate with loved ones and friends back home.

At one point during the interview, I was asked my thoughts about Generation Kill.  It's a good book.  It's like Thunder Run which also details the early battles for Baghdad - TR talks about how one Army Brigade (2nd Brigade of the 3rd ID) took Baghdad while GK is about Marine recon forces.  Both are great reads, but I prefer Thunder Run because I happened to have served in that Brigade many moons ago.

I digress.  Back to Generation Kill...so the interviewer asks me my thoughts about the personal videos and pictures the Marines were taking while on patrol, in combat, and after combat.  They went uncensored and the Marines sent them home which then had them distributed across the internet.  I've seen some of the footage (and you probably have too).  I am pretty sure that I said, "It's complete Bull@#$%."

The interviewer scoffed and mentioned my age - insinuating that an old guy like me wouldn't understand the hip, cool technology that the Marines were using.

I tried to explain that he had it wrong.  It was a tactical reason that I said the Marines taking photos during patrol was BS. 

Imagine you are patrolling and the guy next to you whips out a Nikon when he's supposed to be covering you.  I don't think a whole lot of good can come from Marines and Soldiers taking photos or videos of combat - from a tactical standpoint or a PR/Strategic standpoint.  The interviewer thought it impossible to prevent soldiers from doing so.  I disagree (mostly).  If you've ever been inspected by a sergeant searching for pogey bait, I think you can see that certain equipment could be prevented from going on patrol.

Which leads me to why I wrote this in the first place - Phil Carter has an interesting post about the Strategic disadvantages about the personal use of photographic or video technology in a war zone:

...The U.S. obviously cannot control every image from Iraq and Afghanistan. But it can surely control the images and commentary taken by its soldiers, pursuant to federal and military law, and it really ought to do so. I support soldiers' right to free speech. But I think that right must be subordinated to the larger imperative of winning the war...

Kris Alexander has a great post about this issue too (sparked by Phil's post):

...At CENTCOM during the war, we had an Al Jazeera feed so we could keep tabs on what was going on. I remember watching AJ on night before the invasion kicked off. There was a montage of old war footage with a voice over in Arabic. I don’t speak Arabic, but it was easy to understand the point that was being made by the video. Interspersed with current video from the OIF buildup were images of Gulf War I, brutal Vietnam footage (napalmed babies and village Zippo raids), and Nazi imagery. Actions that soldiers had committed in a previous generation were now being used as anti-American propaganda. We were the Nazis on the march. A picture of a napalmed baby has a long half-life...

This is going to be a hot topic amongst the military over the next few months.

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Strategic And Tactical Disadvantages Of Soldier Video

Joe Katzman of Winds of Change sent me a link which got me thinking about a recent interview I had.

I was recently interviewed for a well-known magazine regarding blogs and how technology has changed how deployed military folks communicate with loved ones and friends back home.

At one point during the interview, I was asked my thoughts about Generation Kill.  It's a good book.  It's like Thunder Run which also details the early battles for Baghdad - TR talks about how one Army Brigade (2nd Brigade of the 3rd ID) took Baghdad while GK is about Marine recon forces.  Both are great reads, but I prefer Thunder Run because I happened to have served in that Brigade many moons ago.

I digress.  Back to Generation Kill...so the interviewer asks me my thoughts about the personal videos and pictures the Marines were taking while on patrol, in combat, and after combat.  They went uncensored and the Marines sent them home which then had them distributed across the internet.  I've seen some of the footage (and you probably have too).  I am pretty sure that I said, "It's complete Bull@#$%."

The interviewer scoffed and mentioned my age - insinuating that an old guy like me wouldn't understand the hip, cool technology that the Marines were using.

I tried to explain that he had it wrong.  It was a tactical reason that I said the Marines taking photos during patrol was BS. 

Imagine you are patrolling and the guy next to you whips out a Nikon when he's supposed to be covering you.  I don't think a whole lot of good can come from Marines and Soldiers taking photos or videos of combat - from a tactical standpoint or a PR/Strategic standpoint.  The interviewer thought it impossible to prevent soldiers from doing so.  I disagree (mostly).  If you've ever been inspected by a sergeant searching for pogey bait, I think you can see that certain equipment could be prevented from going on patrol.

Which leads me to why I wrote this in the first place - Phil Carter has an interesting post about the Strategic disadvantages about the personal use of photographic or video technology in a war zone:

...The U.S. obviously cannot control every image from Iraq and Afghanistan. But it can surely control the images and commentary taken by its soldiers, pursuant to federal and military law, and it really ought to do so. I support soldiers' right to free speech. But I think that right must be subordinated to the larger imperative of winning the war...

Kris Alexander has a great post about this issue too (sparked by Phil's post):

...At CENTCOM during the war, we had an Al Jazeera feed so we could keep tabs on what was going on. I remember watching AJ on night before the invasion kicked off. There was a montage of old war footage with a voice over in Arabic. I don’t speak Arabic, but it was easy to understand the point that was being made by the video. Interspersed with current video from the OIF buildup were images of Gulf War I, brutal Vietnam footage (napalmed babies and village Zippo raids), and Nazi imagery. Actions that soldiers had committed in a previous generation were now being used as anti-American propaganda. We were the Nazis on the march. A picture of a napalmed baby has a long half-life...

This is going to be a hot topic amongst the military over the next few months.

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