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New corporals course stresses war, not drill

The Corps’ premier resident course for junior noncommissioned officers is getting a major face-lift.

Top enlisted officials have revamped the Corporals Course into a standardized program, designed to provide each new NCO with a broader foundation to become a small-unit combat leader and so-called “strategic corporal.”

The revised course will stretch three weeks — a week longer than most classes meet — and focus largely on war-fighting, decision-making and critical-thinking skills, with less emphasis on military traditions, ceremonies and drill.

The current method of earning points to pass is also going away. Students will have to master specific skills or get extra remedial attention from instructors, who will be more like mentors and coaches than raging drill instructors.

There still will be tests — but not the ones where students answer multiple-choice questions by filling in bubble sheets — and even an essay. Corporals will get more hands-on learning and have fewer lectures, but there will be more guided discussions and combat scenarios where they will have to weigh and solve problems.

As of June 2, Marine officials said, every corporal attending a Corporals Course will get the same curriculum and identical training, regardless of the duty station. The changes to the course were tested recently during four pilot programs at three locations: Quantico, Va.; Camp Lejeune, N.C.; and Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

“It’s jam-packed full of activities: Drill, inspections, the sword manual. There are classes all day long,” said Cpl. Bryan Simmetcole, 21, radio operator with 1st Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, Calif. “It’s a good learning experience. They teach you a lot. You grow as a leader, even in a three-week program.”

The revamped course follows a 2007 revision, when Training and Education Command officials gave commanders the option of incorporating an extra war-fighting segment into the two-week course, by either replacing drill or tacking on three days to the course.

At the time, TECom officials found the course was “severely lacking the professional development tools for today’s war fighters.” It had been 10 years since the previous revision.

“That was an interim step,” said James Cohn, deputy director for Enlisted Professional Military Education at Education Command. “Now, there’s only one option.”

The new course, officials said, is no longer about “passing the test.”

“We want to move into the realm of getting the Marine to master the material, to know their material,” said Doug Patton, enlisted PME operations manager at Marine Corps University. “We can see if a Marine can lead his team or if he can operate at night or during the day.”

“We want to give them the skills and the knowledge to be successful small-unit leaders and force multipliers” for their units, added Cohn. Students will “think dynamically, creatively and fulfill that mission of the strategic corporal.”

Building critical thinkers

Above all, education officials say, they want to begin to develop the student for that role in combat environments where the corporal may have to lead his small unit in more tactical situations independently, away from the higher command. This is the “strategic corporal” concept.

“The focus is on making critical thinkers,” Cohn said. “Corporals will be in a situation that isn’t always going to be black and white, [but] thinking outside the box.”

Such scenarios aren’t fictional. Six years of heavy combat operations since the beginning of the Iraq war have pushed tens of thousands of NCOs onto the front lines in combat and security operations, many taking on new leadership roles before attending the resident PME courses. With high op tempo and low dwell time, however, some say it’s more critical for corporals to get PME courses that are relevant.

“The current high operating tempo coupled with rapid promotion to NCO leaves little time to prepare these small-unit leaders. It is imperative that the formal education for these Marines — the Corporals Course — plants the seeds for success,” Capt. James B. Reid wrote in, “Educating the Strategic Corporal,” an article that appeared in the March issue of the Marine Corps Gazette.

Reid, a rifle company commander with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, suggested the addition of ethics and cultural awareness into the course.

“Educating junior leaders to ensure moral and mental fitness is crucial to winning the long war,” he wrote. “The Corporals Course curriculum must shift from one centered on techniques and procedures for small-unit leadership to one that readies the mind of the strategic corporal for the complex, instantaneous decisions required in combat, under the ruthless scrutiny of the media and an international audience.”

The revamped course includes changes to the syllabus that many Marines have experienced at their own commands — adaptations to fit local training requirements.

Some units, such as Combat Logistics Regiment 35 in Okinawa, added a week to the course that focused on tactical leadership and the particulars of their primary combat mission of rear convoy security, including convoy operations, land navigation and weapons handling. During its 2007-2008 deployment to the Persian Gulf region, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., ran a two-week course that included an urban warfare block of training and extra mentoring by staff NCOs.

A look at the training

Changes to the corporal’s curriculum include:

å No more grades. Grade-point averages are gone. Instead, students will be assessed and evaluated by instructors on how well they master each skill and training event. They will receive performance evaluations, but the goal is to be rated as “mastery.” Those who receive “nonmastery” will get extra, almost one-on-one, remediation by instructors or even other students, Cohn said. It’s similar to the pass/fail system used by some colleges and universities, although instructors say the intent is to teach every student to eventually master those skills.

å More warfare and weaponry. There’s more combat in the new Corporals Course, but it’s not just about the “kill.” Students will learn about operations orders, critical thinking and decisiveness, particularly in dynamic combat situations. They will spend more time outdoors, less in the classroom, and will get their hands on more weapons and equipment. There will even be refreshers in the basics, including land navigation.

“They’re learning patrolling. They’re learning fire-team type of missions. They are actually going to the field employing weapons,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Steven Williams, staff noncommissioned officer-in-charge of the Staff Academy at Quantico. Students will also learn some academic lessons, such as how to maintain the duty log and understand the enlisted promotion system.

å Less drill, different PT. Students still will get familiar with the sword manual and have to learn some aspects of drill, but there will be less of it. Physical training will change, with less emphasis on the fundamentals of PT and more on strength and fitness, using programs such as CrossFit and martial arts.

“We don’t have to do a lot of running anymore,” said Williams. Marines know how to run, “so why reintroduce it to them?”

å Instructors as mentors. The relationship students have with their instructors, mostly sergeants and staff sergeants, will become more important as they learn about the role and responsibility as corporals and small-unit leaders. Instructors, in turn, are tasked with evaluating their performance.

“It requires the instructors to teach, coach and mentor along the way,” said Cohn.

Instructors will evaluate their corporals on basic requirements to master an activity. “There is some subjectivity to it,” he said. But with the teach-coach-mentor relationship, “there has to be feedback.”

Students will also learn how they can serve as mentors to their own junior Marines.

å A final war. The course will culminate with a three-day field exercise where students will assume roles within their small unit, each taking on various responsibilities of the squad as they face realistic combat situations.

“It gives the Marines more hands-on, so instead of looking at the M240-Golf ... now they’re able to touch one,” Williams said.

“They will be able to assume all the different things together,” Cohn said.

Students will step into various scenarios that may include “enemy” forces and other challenges requiring them to step up and lead or follow, depending on their particular roles at those moments. Ë