Need for a Web-based Continuing Education Program

摘要

Currently in the Marine Corps, infantry officers attend the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) for approximately 90 days and then are unleashed to the Fleet Marine Force to conduct the infantry operations they have just learned. For two to three years, they continue to hone their skills (given the proper guidance and initiative) as platoon commanders and executive officers and then they are sent to a B-billet (non-MOS billet). For most that means learning a new job that most likely has nothing to do with the infantry skills they have spent three years practicing. A lucky few remain in the infantry mindset as platoon commanders for FAST Co, or instructors at The Basic School (TBS) or IOC. The majority, however, do not have such good fortune and do not experience the infantry mindset again until they return to Expeditionary Warfare School or the Fleet Marine Force as a company commander. By then it is too late to try to get caught up on current tactics, techniques, and procedures, or other company commander issues. The EWS nonresident program is supposed to prepare them for such challenges, but as anyone who has completed it will attest, the program falls far short of achieving that goal. Thus, the Marine Corps is not fully utilizing company commanders because they are not giving them what they require to educate themselves before taking command. To combat this, the Marine Corps must institute a web-based continuing education program for officers working outside the infantry military occupational specialty (0302) to keep their tactics, techniques, and procedures current. This program must be continuously updated to provide future company commanders with the current knowledge they need to be successful.