Content area
Full Text
Rocks in the pack
I have yet to meet a Marine, from private to general, who can say annual training program is accomplishing its task. At the battalion level there is, at best, deep suspicion of the effectiveness of the training. At worst, and more typically, there is outright contempt for the program. We know the education lacks substance, but we seem to prefer to pretend it is working rather than taking the trouble to fix it. In this article, I will outline some of the problems with the classroom component of annual training and, in particular, its implicit purpose of fostering good character and a sense of honor among Marines. I will also point toward solutions to at least some of these problems.
What is Annual Training?
Marine Corps Bulletin 1500, Annual Training and Education Requirements, (Washington, DC: HQMC, February 2015), serves as the official directive that lists all annual training requirements, the method and reference with which each event/class must be conducted, and the timeline associated with each. It outlines 18 components of annual training. Twelve of these involve classroom work.
A separate Marine Corps order (MCO) governs each topic. For example, MCO 1700.28B, Marine Corps Hazing Policy, is 7 pages long, while MCO 1752.5B, Marine Corps Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Program, is 96 pages long. MCO 5300.17, Marine Corps Substance Abuse Program, comes in at a cool 68 pages. In addition to its core content, each order references other official orders or directives substance abuse references 13 documents, while SAPR references 18.1
The Problem
In Note 4 otMCBUL 1500, we learn that Unit Marine Awareness and Prevention Integrated Training (UMAPIT)
integrates and replaces the previous stand-alone training on Child Abuse and Domestic Violence, Combat Operational Stress Control, Substance Abuse, Suicide Prevention, and Family Advocacy into one package.
The introduction of UMAPIT gets at the heart of the problem. If we treat UMAPIT as a single annual training requirement (rather than naming the six separate topics that it encompasses), we effectively reduce the classroom curriculum from 18 to 12. The author of UMAPIT had some sense that annual training had become unmanageable at the lowest level and sought to reduce the burden on unit leaders. While UMAPIT is a clear...