If we can imagine it in "Halo Reach," can we build it now? And if not now, when can we?

Rob Talbert, vlogging for Machinima.com, posts a YouTube review of Bungie Studios' new Xbox game, "Halo Reach."  At about 1:32 on the video, Talbert says that his favorite new features in "HR" include new tools for the avatar warriors, including jet packs, active camo[uflage], armor that repels incoming fire, and a hologram, that lets the player "release a copy of yourself that enemies will shoot at." That is to say, a decoy.

OK, it's a game, but as we know, imagination has to precede creation.  And some of these tech ideas have been floating around for decades, as the website Technovelgy , to name one, lovingly chronicles--or as any gamer knows.

So how close are we to developing such tools in real life--in real combat?  If we could, it would save some lives.

I am sure that the Pentagon's DARPA and JIEDDO  and other agencies have considered all these ideas at one time or another--and maybe it's hard at work on some or all of them--but maybe DARPA, JIEDDO, et al. needs some new funding, or a push.  

The motto of JIEDDO is aut inveniam, aut faciam, words attributed to Hannibal: "I shall either find a way, or make one."

If the US defense establishment had few more Billy Mitchells, Leslie Groves, and Hyman Rickovers--or if it properly empowered those defense visionaries that we might already have on the job--we could surely turn some of these flights of fancy into practical defense systems.

So the question from our troops in the field is, "When?"