Orienting arrow: It helps line the bezel up with the directions on the map. Declination scale: Hash marks on the inside of the bezel designed to help adjust declination.

About seven months after the Army reintroduced land navigation to its Basic Leader Course, half of the soldiers in that pilot program have failed the training.

This is why basic compass and map skills are so important. "Using a map with a compass is a skill that a lot of most people probably don't possess anymore," Bieri said.