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Advanced infantry training also bulking up

As the Schools of Infantry get set for their overhaul, “huge” changes are also afoot at the SOIs’ Advanced Infantry Training Company, according to a Corps training officer.

Within the last year, the company conducted a review of its courses and decided to add common leadership skills to every one, said Capt. Frank Dillbeck, executive officer of AITC-East. Machine gunners, for example, will be section leaders, so they will need the same skill sets that are taught in the squad leader course, Dillbeck said.

AITC is designed to give infantry leaders, such as squad leaders and operations chiefs, specialized training in tactics and weapons systems. Each year, about 1,200 Marines go through the school, which students typically attend about three years after completing initial infantry training at SOI, Dillbeck said. The focus on enhancing small-unit leadership has increased, and all AITC students are now taking mounted patrol and train-the-trainer courses, he said.

“When they go back, these are the guys who are training the [unit] Marines. In one squad leader course, we can train two battalions worth of squad leaders.”

Time in the AITC classroom is growing, too. Within the last year, the squad leader course has grown from 379 academic hours to 545, he said.

The need to increase throughput has doubled class capacity, from four courses a year to eight, he added. The company is also expected to balloon into a battalion in fiscal 2008. The unit will be totally restructured to support the higher task levels, Dillbeck said.

“For example, we will have on staff an air officer, a communications chief, a logistics chief, gunner and the requisite staff of a normal infantry battalion,” he said. “We’re going to be teaching some higher level tasks which require a higher-level of expertise.”

The Corps’ focus on training all squad leaders is pushing skills, such as route planning and tactical decision-making, out to a new crop of leathernecks.

“Some of these guys have never been taught” how to be a unit leader, despite serving in the role, Dillbeck said.

“The way we look at it, it’s not about survivability. A novice or an amateur can go to combat and survive,” Dillbeck said. “We want these guys to thrive.”