The power of Jake

Imagine you’re in Baghdad. It’s 110°, you’re in the alleys 10 blocks from your truck, the enemy is on the move and your squad needs to quickly move from a vulnerable position and be 3 blocks over and flank them. You wish you had something with you for your team to maneuver smoothly and quickly accomplish the mission.

Here, you’d like something powerful, with agile maneuver, a compact and robust size half-way between the foot soldier and his Humvee or truck, bringing support of heavy firepower, a level of armor, robotics and gear into the alleys – something that will team in numbers to move and cover dismounted soldiers and each other, just as our foot soldiers do for each other everyday.

When your reaction is "that such a thing is not fully armored", or "we can’t fund them having that much technology", please pause for a moment and think of our soldiers walking the narrow streets, stabilizing neighborhoods, interfacing with people, but with our enemy adapting and seeking our vulnerabilities here. If there was a new platform combining technologies in a new way, our Soldiers and Marines would equally adapt, with greater supporting firepower, supporting gear and with networked, agile tactics. Here, our young troops would redefine the power of the foot soldier.

This could be viewed as either "bringing back the Cavalry" or in the case of the Marine Corps, a new specialty force in the heavy weapons platoon. In either, a breakthrough here (in 2010 rather than 2030) would immediately expand capabilities needed to stay ahead of a changing enemy. Think of how neighborhoods are stabilized and secured. It’s by our men and women who we call on to be on foot, interfacing with people, as our American soldier does best.

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