A primary objective of the Border Hunter (BH) Program is to enhance the ability of individuals to "see", "assess", and "communicate" information, thus increasing their own situation awareness and the collective situation awareness of their unit. The premise is that individuals must develop the skills to identify tactically significant environmental cues, recognize baseline patterns and changes in order to connect the dots to interpret cues, and use a common language to effectively/efficiently communicate and report this kind of information to their unit. In order to assess the effectiveness of BH in meeting this objective, data were collected during a 20 day BH course on Combat Tracking, Enhanced Observation, and Combat Profiling / Human Terrain. The notion is that each of these topic areas should reinforce the overarching KSAs (Knowledge, Skills & Abilities) of "see", "assess", and "communicate" that transcend individual course domains and are regarded by many as critical for operational success. A pilot study demonstrated that as a result of Combat Hunter training, upon which BH is based, students provided more meaningful intelligence information. The BH course allowed a controlled evaluation of the relationship between intelligence value and Combat Hunter language. Results showed that participants did improve their ability to generate meaningful intelligence information and increase the use of a common language following the BH course. This paper will discuss the metrics and methods used to assess these KSAs pre- and post-BH training, along with their implications for the effectiveness of BH.

Note: The BH Program is a large multi-team effort sponsored by JFCOM.