A Step Back In Time

Apple IPad - a newsroom in a box

El Paso - In certain circumstances a casual stroll through the woods can get you captured or killed. Certain skills that are learned in these environments are not acceptable in polite society. It is a world at war.

It seems like only yesterday, but 35 years ago, I was an Infantry officer who spent more time in the jungle than in garrison. In those days a week or more in the boonies was no big deal; sleeping on the ground was not a hardship, but actually rather confortable. Now, at my advanced age, I am being asked to go to the field once again, though this time, not as a leader but as a follower, an embedded reporter with an Infantry unit.

Three decades ago, reporters with military units filed stories when they returned to garrison. It was the nightmare of every young Infantry officer, to have a reporter dogging your footsteps, revealing to the world the decisions you made, good or bad. Now reporters can actually file stories, almost in real time, from the field using the Internet. Now, rather than being under the microscope, I'll be putting someone else in the spotlight. How times have changed.

Technology has progressed so far and so fast that using an IPad you can take photos, edit them, write the story and file it from wherever you may be. It is really an age of electronic miracles, at least it can be. Of course, there are drawbacks, such as the ever lessening privacy that we all have to endure. Nothing can happen without someone pulling out a camera phone and videoing every nuance of any given situation.