Over the past couple of days, I've been reading articles that include personal photos of the thirteen service members when they were alive. I've copied a number of them and run them through tineye.com. Tineye.com allows you to sort them from the oldest to the newest time they were found on the internet.
So far, I haven't found a single photo that is older than the last week and a half or so. Not one.
Surely some of these photos would have been posted online by family or shared by the service member themselves before the end of August 2021.
Can anyone find a photo posted before this month? I'm still looking...
But in today's era of technology, that's more the exception than the rule. Most of these fallen Marines were in their early twenties. They would have had FB and other social media accounts...not to mention things that could have been posted online by high school sports teams and other clubs via media releases.
Except one of the first things taught to new recruits and reinforced annually is basic OPSEC. Including not posting your picture on social media, but especially announcing where you were going or what your unit was doing.
Not saying a few don't slip through the cracks, I had to refer a few to their commanders for Article 15s back in the day.
Understood.