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<a href="http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette">www.mca-marines.org/gazette</a> 55 M a r i n e C o r p s G a z e t t e • M a y 2 0 0 9 mitment—through example and ac- tion, and this value system is critical to winning the Long War. . . . The challenge to prepare our Marines for the complexities of a counterinsur- gency battlefield, at its essence, is a leadership issue. Marine leaders must do what they have done to coach, train, and inspire their Marines. Each level of leadership, if we are to func- tion as a well-oiled machine, has a role in mission accomplishment. The Challenge It is incumbent upon unit leaders to take this intent and turn it into action while understanding the associated challenges. Small unit leaders must prepare their Marines amidst an over- whelming compilation of individual and collective tasks found in Training and Education Command’s (TE- Com’s) predeployment training con- tinuum. This includes not just military occupational specialty-specific training and readiness manual standards, but also Marine Corps common skills, cur- rent operating environment common skills, vehicle operations proficiency, improvised explosive device defeat, ve- hicle checkpoint/entry checkpoint op- erations, escalation of force theory and practice, application of the law of war, intelligence collection at the individ- ual and unit levels, cultural awareness, and tactical language training just to name a few. Tack on annual/semian- nual/quarterly training requirements and factor in mastering counterinsur- gency concepts and the most up-to- date tactics, techniques, and pro- cedures. Now add in getting Marines the proper down time, keeping fami- lies together and involved, and the seemingly endless day-to-day emerg- ing requirements. The result is that you have just very little time in a con- densed training cycle to integrate a sustained learned value, let alone a suc- cessful moral and ethical training pro- gram. For those about to do so, they must know what tools are available for the task at hand. Very few doctrinal references come to mind that can be used as tools for moral and ethical training. A few of these include Marine Corps Reference Publication 6–11B (MCRP 6–11B), Marine Corps Core Val- ues: A User’s Guide for Discussion Leaders; MCRP 6–11D, Sustaining the Transforma- tion; and Marine Corps Warfighting Publi- cation 6–11, Leading Marines. While these publications have been great tools over the years, they are now outdated and in need of refinement. They provide little trans- parent correlation between the application of core values/ethics in the home station, the combat zone, and the current operat- ing environment. Outside of references, we lack a strong theoretical understanding of ethical theory, taught by properly trained personnel, and taught consistently across professional schools and unit-level professional military education classes.6 The outcome is that there is little to aid the small unit leaders who must rely on in- dividual experiences and their upbringing in the Corps to guide them as they de- velop training and educate their subordi- Their values should align with Marine Corps values of honor, courage, and commitment. (Photo by PFC C. Warren Peace.)
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www.mca-marines.org/gazette