Quote Originally Posted by Jedburgh View Post

Personally, I think a good combat arms staff SFC/MSG who is already settled in the unit has far more capability to fill that operational need than a SPC/SGT MI troop who comes in as a new attachment to fill a temporary need. Learning "databases and systems" is the easy part - being able to integrate it into an operational context is quite another. An experienced NCO is always going to be better at putting it into context for the commander than a cherry analyst on his first deployment.

Perhaps what is really needed is an effective O&I course for combat arms NCOs that is similar to the 18F course (the current Battle Staff course doesn't cut it).
Concur. In most units where I ever served, we had a "field first/operations sergeant" that we carved out of hide if need be. Quite often it was the platoon sergeant who had done a bang up job training his/her LT platoon leader or the PSG who was lucky enough to get an LT assigned who already "got it" and could afford to spare that Sr NCO to the company. I think most Bde and higher level staffs probably have a few senior NCOs playing staff "toadie/go-fer" who could be spared to become company operations sergeants (I'm sure that TRADOC units have a bunch, unless things have changed radically), which is what I think we are really advocating for. They might need a little training on how to brief and debrief a patrol and how to poke in the data into a standardized report to the Bn2 shop, but the learning curve would be much less than trying to get an E4 96B up to speed.