Complexity is at the core of nearly every mission for the U.S. Marines serving in the Asia-Pacific region. Even something as simple as the international dateline must be taken into account when the U.S. Marine Corps plans operations within its area of responsibility. From the communications perspective, the diversity of countries it interacts with poses significant challenges to its network operators and planners.

There is a quote used by countless writing teachers worldwide, and credited to almost as many writers, which reads, “I would have written a shorter letter, but didn't have time.” It’s time to bring that quote up to date given the way we fire off messages in a split second via email, instant messages (IMs) and “Tweets” (Twitter message). Today’s version should read, “I’m sorry that message was so dumb; I didn’t have time to make it smarter.”