Should cell phones be allowed in the field?

Strange. I served in Afghanistan and Iraq with combat units and the only people who had cell phones were the interpreters. That's it. Nothing else was allowed. It was a security risk...still is. The interpreters had it so the police chief or the mayor could call and vice versa. When not being used in conversation, they were locked up in the TOC under the Battle-Captain's seat. No one had cell phones...not even the BDE CDR.

Well like has pointed out, taking on deployment can be deadly due to the fact, that with the battery in, it is always sending out signal. No it not the fact knowing when it is appropriate, it lack of training, and integrating into the service when it is appropriate. Yes, it can be handy to work on stuff while in field, when you have the time to, and to look up ARs, FMs, and TCs to have that library at your hands as needed.

You can do all those thing with with the exception of viewing and sending emails, with WiFi Tablet device too. The thread is too focus, Cell Phones in part of the larger, because today Tablets whether it uses Phone Data/WiFi or just WiFi can be added to these rules and regulations too, as should the iPod Touch which are basically iPhone without some of the added hardware to make it cell phone. With many of these Tablet they come small enough where they aren't much bitter than the largest Smart Phones out there anymore. Something to thing about, as well the use of such devices as flash drives, other versions of iPods, External Hard Drives (some are very small), and MP3 players. With the iPods, and MP3 players many of them can be used as external hard drives to hold more files than music, videos, and pictures.

It's a sad state of affairs that viewing and editing slide decks and memos is required while you are in the field.

Agreed. There are some great apps for military use. IT's good to have the Goals Book for counseling and a GPS in case of emergency. I prefer to limit their use instead of banning them. There's no sense in being a Ludite in an age where there is so much capability. Now, if we deploy...it's a different matter.

Well when I deployed I didn't have service for my phone anyways

....theres an IPAD app that'll show you exactly where the sattelite you're trying to hit is at.

Yes if they are sitting reading comic or watching movie or tv show out in the field, during training, during business hours of the day, or duty post. Yes then they need to be corrected. If they are on more or less on free time, what should it matter, as long they not giving away their position in the field, and can hear what going on around them.

That's certainly the policy at the CTC's. In the local training areas it's up to the Chain of Command however. I prefer to set limitations on its use instead of trying to ban them outright. I've seen commanders give UCMJ for having a cell phone in the field. It never goes well for all involved. Absolutes fail...absolutely.

One complaint you will always get from Soldiers is the lack of capability of Army systems. It takes me 10 minutes to fire up this FBCB2, when I can immediatly text someone on my cell phone. I need a 200lb piece of military equipment to do (at half the capability) what Verizon has been able to fit into the palm of my hand. It's the ease of use which drives people to bypass the Army system and go straight to the cell phone. We (as a military) need to do a better job of creating systems that are as technologically advanced as our users.

That is the key point, IMHO. We need to be creating systems that are as technologically advanced as our users. Case in point for CTC - if you are engaged with the civilian partner role players (DOJ, USAID, DOS), it's literally impossible to communicate with any reasonable expediency other than through civilian cell phones. To use MTOE-only equipment, you need to send a message via FBCB2 to higher, then higher has to send that message laterally to the DOJ/DOS lead, then that lead has to push the message to the partner. Then if you need a response, the partner then communicates back to the lead, to higher, then back to the boots on the ground. You'd never succeed in your mission, especially when one day is designed to represent 30 days of real world. NIPR was a virtual no-go as well, which might have been helpful to replace cell phone communication.

The alternative was to provide GSM phones that only worked in the NTC box. Regardless of the fact that they only worked 90% of the time, the civilian partners did not have access to them. And Soldiers could not use the GSM phones to call the partners' civilian cells phones.

It is a broken system for that one particular communication chain at NTC, one that can only be mitigated through the use of Soldier owned and maintained equipment right now, but that NTC and the Army as a whole needs to address. And this is real world, in a combat scenario like NTC delivers, some Soldiers will need the ability to communicate with local nationals and civilian partners who do not have access to MTOE equipment.

What we can intercept, can be intercepted. What we can jam, an enemy can jam too. We rely too much on technology. Yes, some of it is necessary to be technologically superior and win wars. Not all of it falls in that category. Wristwatches evolved in WWI to synchronize firing and assaults--before that people thought a wristwatch was for sissies. Today, we don't really need them, but most of us have one. Or two...

I agree it was bad enough with walkman back in the day and cameras, now with these cellphone in the last 20 years and other technologies.  Some items yes if you have some me time while out in the field, but if you going for field problem where there isn't no me time, show some discipline and leave it in the barracks.  Nothing worse than have earphone one and hearing someone calling your name in the middle of the night as they kick the small of your back as you are sacked out in the fart bag.