Inventor worried about soldiers' surroundings (11)
I believe the answer is:
environment
'surroundings' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'inventor worried about soldiers'' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'about' could be 'on' (as in a book 'on' a certain topic) and 'on' is found in the answer.
'soldiers'' could be 'men' (men can mean a group of soldiers) and 'men' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for environment that I've seen before include "Natural world; surroundings" , "External surroundings" .)