One of our most controversial moves was our embedding program, an exchange system we began in late 2003 in which we would take an individual from one team—say, an Army Special Forces operator—and assign him to a different part of our force for six months—a team of SEALs, for example, or a group of analysts. Our hope was that, by allowing our operators to see how the war looked from inside other groups, and by building personal relationships, we could build between teams some of the fluency that traditionally exists within teams.
