easier to say "talk to any pauldron guy for help or advice" over find X name, and also gives extra reward for being an officer by having additional customization options. Literally every other unit has this function and its useful for that
If this can't be implemented at scale as Xaze said, perhaps it can be made that the server sends out a message for the chat that says the comms have just went down/up so people can at least tell when comms are functional and have a reference for that.