Newly promoted sergeants, get ready for new education requirements to make it to staff sergeant — or any rank beyond. The Corps is rolling out a new professional education requirement for enlisted Marines that will need to be completed before making it to any new rank, all the way up to master gunnery sergeant. The program is called Regional, Culture and Language Familiarization, or RCLF for short. It takes the globe, carves it up into 17 different sections, and assigns to Marines the cultures and languages associated with each. New lieutenants have been doing this since 2008 and new warrant officers since 2010. The…
Browsing: Training
The Marine Corps Times interactive map showing what Marines are doing around the world has been updated with new information provided by public affairs for the week ending Oct. 5. [HTML1]
OK, we admit it. We just can’t seem to get enough zombie stuff. Strategic Operations, Inc., familiar to many Marines and sailors as the San Diego studio-turned-tactical trainers who use Hollywood magic to create Hyper-Realistic combat training, is crafting scenes for a training conference in San Diego next month. Organized by The HALO Corp., a private security firm, the HALO Counter-Terrorism Summit will offer several realistic scenarios to more than 1,000 attendees as the company takes over the 44-acre Paradise Point Resort in the playground of Mission Bay and turns it into movie sets for the Oct. 29-Nov. 2 event.…
Marine Corps Marathon is exactly one month away. With just a few weeks left to embrace the blisters, multi-hour training runs and insatiable cravings for carbohydrates that accompany marathon prep, my running partner, Jeremy Boutwell, and I have encountered a number of challenges in advance of the race. Last weekend Jeremy and I both missed one of the longest (and arguably one of the most important) training runs on our schedule. I got hit with a sinus infection that kept me in bed for a couple of days and Jeremy wrestled with a fever and increased pain in his lower…
As we get closer to the marathon, the perks begin to appear: training runs in cooler weather; running sneakers that are comfortably broken in; and an escalating confidence in athletic ability. For me, the idea of running 26.2 miles starts to become palpable in mid-September (a realization that I have to keep up with a Marine is also incentive to stick to my training schedule). For Jeremy Boutwell, my marathon teammate, his long training runs are becoming more comfortable as he continues to train in the Texas heat. Another perk of getting closer to the race is the increased buzz…
Walk into any running store and you’re bound to get lost in a sea of neon-colored, fancy-treaded, gel-patterned athletic sneakers. Got flat feet? There’s a shoe for that. Do you overpronate — i.e., does your foot tend to roll toward the inside with each step? There’s a shoe for that, too. Want to channel your inner ultra-athlete? Go barefoot with a glove-like minimalist fit. If you had a chance to pick up this week’s edition of Marine Corps Times, you read about Staff Sgt. Jeremy Boutwell and how we’re running the Marine Corps Marathon together on Oct. 28. Boutwell medically…
Yesterday, I posted about ‘MuscleFest’, the sixth event of the 2012 Commanders Cup at Marine Barracks Washington 8th & I. The event was part of a series designed to introduce Marines to a variety of physical fitness activities and enhance camaraderie through friendly competition. This morning I spoke with two Marines who participated in the event on July 30. Staff Sgt. Noel Min Just 10 minutes before our conversation, Min was informed that he won the Masters Division for Marines 33 years and older. The Huntsville, Ala. native participated in MuscleFest in 2011 and said the preparation of knowing what…
Despite rules against it, hazing is one of those perennial problems that just don’t seem to end. The 2011 suicide of a lance corporal, whose death after getting berated and hazed for falling asleep on post in Afghanistan, brought the issue to the halls of Capitol Hill earlier this year as lawmakers (including his aunt, a Hawaii congresswoman) demanded tougher penalties for perpetrators who inflict pain and humiliation on each other. When the commandant, Gen. James Amos, issued a stern warning in February and updated the 1997 order prohibiting any hazing, the message was loud and clear: Such behavior would…
Ready or not, the debate about whether or not women should be able to serve in infantry units has moved firmly into the mainstream media spotlight. Capt. Katie Petronio appeared on CNN this morning, reaffirming the position she took in a recent Marine Corps Gazette article that women should not be able to serve in infantry units: [HTML1] Petronio’s appearance follows on the heels of a piece by the New York Times’ C.J. Chivers published Sunday. It outlined the planned experimental introduction of female lieutenants at Infantry Officers Course. Marine Corps Times has covered the issue at length in the…
Deployments to Afghanistan may be ramping down, but this year is seeing a flurry of joint exercises with some allies here at home as Marines host Canadian, British and New Zealand troops for some good ol’ combat training in the coastal areas and deserts of the Southwest U.S. “Javelin Thrust,” a large-scale exercise with Marine Forces Reserve and 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade, kicks off in late June with more than 5,000 Marines, many of them reservists from 32 states massing at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif. They will joined by a contingent of Canadian troops who…
