Stay in your lane isn’t helping the situation. Also, while fobbit is funny internally and helps maintain the operator focused hierarchy, calling these names on the outside is distasteful. We need to be supporting each other in our travails in the civilian world and not turning our service into a pissing contest. He didn’t make up his service or lie about the unit he was apart of. If he exaggerated anything, it was building a niche site more than a startup.

I applaud the OP for getting shit done while on deployment and having the courage to talk about it. And if he wants to get a little bit more attention by using the Iraq word, than by all means do it, because he was “deployed to Iraq.” The military beat into us not to self promote and not to bullshit. Both are somewhat a hindrance on the outside, especially in entrepreneurship. Good on the OP for trying to both build things and promote them.

Meh. I did my time in Iraq. I had hard tours. The guy deployed like anyone else, stating as such is not exploiting anything. Get over the POG/Boot/Leg mindset.

The title is 100% accurate (unless you want to split hairs on the definition of "startup"), so what's the problem?

The point is that he built something in less than an hour a day during his free time.

Those of us in the military community have a saying: "Lighten up, Francis."

As for me, when I read the title, I immediately assumed that the author was stationed at a base in Iraq and worked on his project during his down time. Upon reading the article, this assumption turned out to be correct.

True, but if you know you're fighting in Florida and they have 3 radars... you probably don't need to load the two radars which are known to only exist in Alaska. The world is a big place with many kinds of radars. Or maybe, yesterday, you received new information about the three Florida radars. Wouldn't it be good to be able to bring that new information when you head out today?

It does not sound as they would only load data, for me this sounds as if they would load software modules, which would result in a untestable mess.

I think it's less "software modules" than tables of data.

Sure, unless your ship's negative encounter with said radar and associated weapons is what provided the new information.

You seem to be describing a circumstance in which no new information about the radar was available at the time the mission began. Regardless, would it not also be good to be able to record that new information so your friends can take advantage of it?

I hope my other comment sufficiently addressed that "urban combat" was not the task being trained in that exercise. There are places the military trains for "urban combat" ... Main St. USA is not it.

With respect, I understand many people viewed that one training event with skepticism. I'm not going to try and change your mind. I would, however, like to address the idea that "training for training's sake" has no value.

Tough, frequent, realistic training is exactly what is required to keep certain parts of the military prepared. I'm not talking about logisticians or acquisitions types. Personnel turnover is a problem. People must learn how to work together. For people like you and I, we have the opportunity to learn to work with our coworkers... every day! In the military, a service member only really learns how to work with their coworkers during these kinds of exercises. When it's cold. When it's dark. When everyone is tired and hungry.

You've also suggested that "the military has the tactics and hardware to engage in urban settings down pat" ... and you're absolutely correct. Senior personnel have lessons learned. Those lessons are captured in various documents. However, much like a start-up, execution is everything. The execution comes from personnel who typically have just a few years experience. There is an enormous amount of knowledge which must be transferred in a short period of time. These training events are how the lessons and doctrine are shared with those junior leaders. Classroom instruction is not sufficient.

Finally, I will disagree that the training event was "odd in it's conception." Certain parts of the military perform these kinds of exercises regularly. The only part of this exercise which was odd was the amount of attention it garnered.

I agree with everything you've said except the last paragraph. Training the troops is important! Too bad the knuckleheads in power did nothing to explain or justify the size/scope/location of the exercise, maybe it would have been worthwhile.

Sounds like you think it would have been okay though. Want to sell me on rolling tanks, helicopters, and troops through town? Can they fire their guns and cannons (with blanks)? What limits would you put on the exercise if you were in charge or is everything the military does reasonable?

Ed, great question. It would be absolutely unreasonable (...and not being a lawyer... I would suspect illegal... but I don't really know) for tanks, helicopters, and troops to "roll... through town." I also agree that you touched on the key failing in that training event: poor explanation to the national audience of the scope of the event.

The military has many places to train. There are places to shoot. There are places to blow things up. There are places to maneuver tanks. There are few places which include a civilian population.

That event was a training event for parts of SOF community; a community which is operating in over 100 countries at any given time. Very few of those countries are in active conflict... by that I'm referring to a shooting-war. These types of units must be prepared to perform their tasks in a peaceful environment without undue notice. Units are typically small; think less than 15 people with maybe 2-3 civilian-style vehicles. They operate dispersed over large areas. They don't have tanks. When such units move around, they are usually in non-military vehicles and attire. For this kind of unit many tasks are related to interacting with people, either local security forces (police and military) or local civilians. There is a legitimate need to train on such tasks.

These types of training events focus on the military tasks which need this kind of a training environment (large area, dispersed operations, civilian population). Training for tasks related to shooting and blowing things up happen in areas the military 'owns.'

I highly doubt any of the training plans included detonations, live-fire, or even dry-fire events anywhere outside the normal military training areas. It's more likely that the interactions with the actual civilian population would have been completely un-noticed. An interaction would more likely look like a strangely fit group of guys were putting fuel in their Toyota and then drove away... maybe making a few jokes with you while you both wait at the pump. Almost certainly the same (or less) level of impact as your average Reserve or National Guard unit driving around on a weekend.

I feel like your last paragraph there is an attempt to subtley troll that went too far. If not, then I'd love for you to cite your sources for such speculation (beyond the original JH 15 powerpoint, which has to be intentionally vague regarding scope and specifics regarding an operation which hasn't yet taken place).

These are all things that actual militaries do for exercises. In fact, under certain conditions they'll fire their weapons a LOT without blanks (live-fire exercises).