There have been two thousand three hundred forty one deaths in Afghanistan from the United States alone. This is of course over the duration of the war from 2001 to the current year of 2014. I'm not sure how many of these are due to the loss of sensitive items on the soldiers part; I do know however how crucial it is to maintain accountability of your sensitive items as a soldier. The definition of a sensitive item is a piece of equipment or an item that is potentially harmful or hazardous or is of high monetary value and easily converted to unauthorized use or disposal.
The loss of a sensitive item can seriously impact the mission whether it be night vision goggles, military I.D., or even a weapon in an extreme circumstance. Any item that we lose can be turned into an advantage for our enemy. There was an incident in 2013 where a Marine was on patrol. During the course of this patrol he spotted a radio on the ground, picked it up, and moved it back to there vehicle. While they were en route back to base the radio exploded killing everyone in the vehicle. It was not a good decision for the Marine to pick up the radio in the first place. I can only speculate this was radio was lost by another part of the American armed forces. Which in turn gave the enemy a chance to create a bomb out of something we see as familiar, and in turn giving the enemy the knowledge of how our radios look in the future. On a semi-unrelated note since these items are assigned to soldiers if they are lost the soldier will be paying for them. These items are often worth hundreds of dollars if not more so this is no small fee.
Accountability of a soldiers sensitive items is an easy and small process. All it takes is for consistent checks by first line supervisors, and responsibility of the soldiers themselves. Due to the enlistment requirement of the United States Army being eighteen years old, We can recognize that everyone is a legal adult. To ask that an adult who swore an oath to...