I didn't mean a contractor in the army quarters. Being in the field close to soldiers should help - in case of farmers, it's as if John Deere's certified mechanic (of course with all training, tools and spare parts, including and especially all software-related) was on the farm during harvest period. However, there shouldn't be a situation when the equipment can be fixed - i.e. it's not destroyed enough - and it's not because of software. Software is something which is relatively easy to change - I'm a software guy - and it has this property and advantage over hardware. So if it's software which misbehaves, it should be double duty of such a contractor - this time the whole company, not only the person in the army position - to help with everything, in a timely manner. In farm it's to allow harvesting to go with less problems, in fight it's to avoid losses among soldiers.

I'm mostly talking about the whole company approach to such time-sensitive customers.