I would make the general a spectator that can communicate with his team. Having to protect someone while doing a mission would be annoying.

I guess, but maybe there''s a better way to get that effect, if a little less "realistic" (what general commands from the ground, anyway?): Let players choose whether to be bone-and-meat combatants or "observers" at the beginning of the game. Observers would be like dead soldiers, except they can communicate with live ones. They''re in spectator mode, so they can bounce from one friendly player to another, and can use the talk feature to relay intel. It would be roughly equivalent to the guy in the vehicle in "Aliens": He can see everyone''s helmet cam, and can talk to everyone, but doesn''t have to do things like shoot and hide, so he can tell the others what you''re doing while your fingers are busy taking cover and switching to your secondary weapon.

The trade-off is that that soldier can''t be actively engaged in the fighting. If you had a team of five against a team of four with an observer, would one team have a clear advantage? I don''t know.