PART 2: THE ACADEMY
In part 2 of our series on the health of drill in today's Corps, we focus on the Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy's impact. Part 1 focused on the role that staff NCOs and former drill instructors play. Okinawa Marine editor Sgt. Ethan E. Rocke reports in this story as both a journalist and as a sergeant of Marines with his own insight.
In order to assess the health of drill, it is necessary to define what drill is to the Corps. All the Marines I asked had similar answers. Most of them used words like foundation and cornerstone. Most agreed that it's more than traditional close-order drill - military members in formation, marching, maneuvering and handling weapons with fluidity and rhythm.
Explaining Marine Corps drill to an outsider is a difficult task, but I'll try to illustrate it as best I know how. Drill is the metaphorical equivalent to the lightning bolt in one of the Corps' famous recruiting commercials -the one that transforms a crude gauntlet-running dragon slayer into a refined, disciplined and professional Marine warrior. Such is the case with drill. While it lacks the fantastical, instantaneous glamour of the lightning bolt, it transforms us in the same way and leaves within us the same electricity and desire to simply "be the best," as Gunny English put it.
It's no secret that being the best is a prevalent theme throughout the Marine Corps, and as Marines continually live up to the expectation of doing "more with less," we have to constantly focus ourselves on individual job proficiency while always remaining riflemen first.
Marine leaders especially must be capable of this careful balance, which is why the Marine Corps provides and stresses professional military education.
The Marine Corps Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy is where sergeants, staff sergeants and gunnery sergeants go for a recharge, a rejuvenating lightning strike so to speak. Not surprisingly, a large chunk of the six-week curriculums of Sergeants Course, Career Course and the Advanced Course is devoted to drill.
"Drill gives us the extra discipline to prepare and execute the task at hand," said Staff Sgt. Edward Kretschmer, a faculty advisor at the Okinawa Staff NCO Academy's Sergeants Course. "It builds and makes the individual Marine a better leader. Confidence and drill are directly tied to each other."
Gunnery Sgt. Toshia C. Sundermier, Staff NCO in charge of the Career Course on Okinawa, says the ultimate responsibility of ensuring the health of drill lies with senior leaders, which is why the academy curriculum focuses a great deal of attention on it.
"It's from the top down," Sundermier said. "If the senior leadership isn't making it happen and emphasizing it, then the junior leaders aren't going to do it."
The SNCO Academy is the most obvious example of such a top down emphasis. The academy curriculum is set by Headquarters Marine Corps, which means those at the very top of the Corps' chain of command have made drill proficiency a priority for Marine leaders.
The Marine Corps places a lot of faith in the SNCO Academy's role as a place where the drill tradition is nurtured, but the academy is essentially a simple investment in capable, individual leaders, and those leaders are trusted with a promise to pass on the knowledge.
"The academy curriculum is geared perfectly to set up leaders, but that's all we can do," said Gunnery Sgt. Ceylon Williams, the chief instructor for Okinawa's Career Course. "It's up to the individual. We're here to make them better leaders and send them out to their units with the knowledge to make others around them better."
Sundermier echoed Williams' assessment.
"It's not only the SNCO Academy's responsibility," she said. "We only have them for six weeks. It's up to the individuals to take what they learn and apply it at their units."
In other words, leaders can walk away from the Academy with a newly electrified NCO sword and the power to wield lightning bolts of their own. But what makes a real difference in ensuring drill's health is whether or not they actually take the sword out of the scabbard and aim its electricity at the Marines around them.
