In the Army accountability is everything. It is one of the reasons the Army will never be a "flat" organization in the modern sense. Every leader needs to be able to tell someone above that he knows where his people are. So each team leader (in charge of 3 or 4 soldiers) can tell the squad leader (with 10) where his people are. Three squad leaders tell the platoon sergeant where their squads are. The platoon sergeants know the whereabouts of their 40 soldiers. Several platoons make a company (100 to 200) and then a battalion (600), a brigade (2000) a division (6000 to 10,000) and so on.
So we arrived today at 2pm to sign in. We had a roll call formation at 3pm. We had dinner at 5pm. And that was our day--except those who did not mark their duffel bags. They reported in the morning to mark their baggage.
This whole day was devoted to: "All present and accounted for."
