If one wants to find out what the consumer product environment will be like tomorrow, look at what the military has, and a decade later, you will see the technology used in products for civilians.  

I think you can find examples where both of you are right, but i believe the shift is the civilian first idea. Perhaps its due to rapid developments unhindered by govt red tape and an example of capitalism/competition trumping all.

"For example, wire guided missiles and smart bombs were developed during World War II (mainly 1942-45) but were not put into regular use or continued development until more than a decade after 1945."  A little help please.  Does anyone know the facts about the Vietnam War era story about the military preventing the use of smart bombs  because the military/government did not want the Soviets to know we had smart bombs?   The result being the loss of aircraft while dropping dumb bombs on sorties would not have been needed if accurate smart bombs had been allowed to be used.   Is that story a myth or is there some basis in fact?   The story centers on  the Dragon’s Jaw bridge at Thanh Hoa.

I served on the newest version of the M1A1 while stationed in Germany in the 90's.  Contrary to what the author implies, M1's had no true air conditioning system.  What we had was an air-cooled vest that hooked into the output hose from the NBC system.  It worked...sort of.  It's about the same as saying that if you open your car window while driving down a hot freeway, you have instant air conditioning.  ;)  We never had real air conditioning, however.