It should be pointed out that the Stryker was the brainchild not of contractors but of General Shinseky, the General of the Army. Like most schemes though up by officers (thier all really cool up to captain, but once a lot of them hit major, it all starts to go all wiggy up in thier heads) they tend to not be in touch with the technical aspects of reality.

Case in point, right now I'm doing a job outside of my MOS making a website and intelligence database for an intel battalion. First briefing (unclassified) I gave to all the officers I got questions to the effect that they wanted their humvees to be able to connect to this website. . . .

I'm thinking: "ok guy I'm making a website here, not manufacturing secret humvee deployable encrypted satellite modems."

then the rest started brainstorming that I should 'merge' this somehow (still not exactly sure what they mean by "merge" or "integrate" or "fuse" but it sure did sound good to them) with 10+ other national level databases that I don't have any control over so that they won't have to go to different webpages, and I continued to get steamrollered by these guys for 30 minutes.

This is why I'm not so enthused about the likes of Wesley Clark becoming president. You heard his stance on the speed of light? Yep, another case in point. Must be something they put in the water at ROTC and West Point and WOC for that matter.