The flip side of this problem is that there a lot of tools in the box, and it takes a great deal of technical know how to use them. (Let's leave aside for a moment that the tools are constantly in flux, and the contracted nature of our current conflicts replaces the tools every few months for the newest tool, or that we have multiple tools that do the exact same job, and are completely committed to redundant reporting.)

The unfortunate part of our profession is that it does require using these tools, preparing the data to be disseminated to the lowest level (and that doesn't always mean Private Snuffy) and managing information with multiple machines and trackers. For us dumb maneuver guys this is often extremely difficult.

The real challenge we face, especially at the CO/BN level where the rubber meets the road is synching these two things. I don't think anyone really honestly expects a PVT to do real analysis of any kind, nor should we expect our SSGs and CPTs to be plugging away at the TIGR/ASAS-L/GE/MCS machines late into the night. I think we are also pushing the responsibility to the wrong people as well; yes it's the 35 series job to do some of these tasks, but utlimately they are not the decision makers. The accountability falls on commanders and operations guys to take those products and use critical thinking and apply their own analysis to the situations, not pass the blame for their own failures to some enlisted kid who will never see the enemy or the terrain anyway.