Yes.
Yes.
In the military I had the knowledge and equipment to contact you regardless of whether you were in a plane, on a ship, in a sub, in the Amazon on a wooden raft or on top of Mt. Everest. As long as you had a phone I could communicate with you.
Sure, but you’re not likely to be EDC’ing a means of communication beyond the normal cell phone on a daily basis. You’re much more likely (particularly if you’re a member of this forum) to be EDC’ing a flashlight on a daily basis.
Precisely why I made the points I made in post #29.
Not every flashlight needs an SOS, strobe or beacon feature. The ML under my bed doesn’t really need those modes. But a small EDC style of flashlight is perfect for those modes if/when the user needs them. As I said in my previous post, you don’t really need a spare tire…until you get a flat. You don’t really need and SOS mode on your EDC flashlight…until your in situation where it is necessary to signal for rescue (as well as needing your hands free for other tasks). Having an SOS/beacon/strobe mode isn’t a guarantee but it is a useful tool that provides options. And in an emergency situation you’re going to want all the options you can possibly have. Hopefully all of us will never be in a situation where we’ll need this mode. But you can see just in some of the responses in this thread where such a feature may have been quite useful.