The goal of much military activity (at least at the front) is trying not to be seen. The goal of patrolling is finding that which is trying not to be found. Patrols try to gather information about the enemy and terrain facing them. They also try to keep the enemy off balance (by ambushing his patrols), and, if possible, capture enemy prisoners—a potentially great source of information . A patrol operates by moving from one point to another (and usually back again), taking careful note of what they observe on the way. A patrol is organized as follows: 1) the Point Man—ideally, the man with the best combination of Stealth and Observation skills. If an ambush is waiting ahead of the party, it's "Point"'s job to find it and signal to the rest of the patrol. If he fails, the patrol gets hit... 2) the Slack man—he moves next, far enough behind the point not to draw attention to or distract him, but close enough to support him if the point needs it. He is almost invariably armed with a machine gun or automatic rifle, something that can hose down an ambushing force, keeping their heads down while the point man escapes and the rest of the patrol figures out what to do—run away, or work around and attack the ambush. 3) The rest of the patrol. Absolute silence is required on patrol, at least until the shooting starts, so most communication is by hand signal, or, if radios are used, terse whispers and improvised click codes (performed by "breaking squelch", keying the mike to transmit, causing a quick popping on the air, but not saying anything. Patrolling, defensive tactics, and fire and movement are the basis of all infantry activity, including most special forces operations. (After all, special forces are basically highlytrained specialpurpose infantry). They require good physical conditioning, and a superb sense of teamwork.