The Situation On The Ground There are two ways for our nation’s protectors to get left of bang: either to identify the pre-event indicators that are present on the ground (the physical terrain) or to find those indicators communicated by people (the human terrain). Both components are what make up the environment, but in the search for the quantifiable information needed to make decisions on the battlefield, the physical terrain is often seen as more tangible and therefore more reliable. People can easily identify the affect that sunlight, wind, and moisture has on vegetation or the ground itself. Disturbances caused by a footstep are present for a longer amount of time than a posture or gesture is displayed on the body, allowing the observer to spend a longer time on scene to analyze that information if needed. However, in an urban environment with a heavily concentrated population, these indicators become very hard to find as the sheer number of people can contaminate the scene and skew the analysis. As the world’s population migrates from rural areas into urban centers, the need for our nation’s military to become more adept at separating the enemy from the crowd he hides amongst becomes an increasingly relevant skillset.