iPods at War

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put together an outstanding piece of journalism about the use of personal technology in America's military and how these devices along with blatant piracy is causing new problems in the face of war: "While soldiers once deployed with little more than a backpack and a rifle, today's crop of infantry troops pack along MP3 players, digital cameras, DVD players, video games, movie collections, and computers of their own. The personal electronics have made modern American warfare the most comfortable it has ever been, but they've also brought a new set of problems onto the battlefield.""

Comments

Re:Unfounded Criticism

[saskboy]

I think Improvised Explosive Dells are a more serious concern for both the military and the general public.

It's a sad comment on the condition of humanity when we see youths describing how they turned up their MP3 player while "killing the enemy" in Iraq. There's a horrible scene in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" when a solider starts singing "The roof is on fire... we don't need no water let the [mellonfarmer] burn, burn [mellonfarmer].. burn!" to describe his work from the past days. But as he or a comrade said, it's important to get fired up and "get in the mood". It's not the iPod's fault how it's used, but the military might want to reconsider its missions if it needs to lure people in with the "comfort" of their music players to get the job done at all.