"Adopt a Marine"

[Culpeper]

Hey Culpeper !

Admittedly, I immediately expressed interest in adopting a sniper

Sadly, the site seems to be into gathering funds. But for whom ?

http://americansnipers.org/faq.html

They used to be under a different name (url) since the last time I visited the website. Perhaps the faq page can answer some of your questions. The organization has gone through some growing pains since my last visit to the site.

Also, the home page has a link to a forum. You can address any questions there or use their contact link for additional info and so forth.

[Ender]

This is a totally different focus but the "Adopt a Sniper" program is no joke and it REALLY helps.

We had a team leader in my platoon who wrote to them and they sent so MUCH gear to him (had to be upwards of $500-1000 worth of kit, two HUGE boxes).... if I remember right all of the optics and cleaning kits came right before Al Fajr and the rest came after... I still have a ton of my gear (hell I had to pay for most of it... I should get to keep it) and a few of the items I still use came from them!

If you are considering whether or not this is a good thing or not, let me tell you they helped us considerably and really seem to be dialed in on what the troops need. I don't remember the specifics and have not looked at the link yet, (headed to class) but if someone is trying to OBTAIN gear from this program they need to either be an 8541, or the equivalent thereof, OR know someone who is and is willing to write. We had two 8541's and were able to get enough kit to spread between the four team leaders (and then on down to the four teams - everyone got something!)

NOT a BAD deal.

[Culpeper]

This is a totally different focus but the "Adopt a Sniper" program is no joke and it REALLY helps.

We had a team leader in my platoon who wrote to them and they sent so MUCH gear to him (had to be upwards of $500-1000 worth of kit, two HUGE boxes).... if I remember right all of the optics and cleaning kits came right before Al Fajr and the rest came after... I still have a ton of my gear (hell I had to pay for most of it... I should get to keep it) and a few of the items I still use came from them!

If you are considering whether or not this is a good thing or not, let me tell you they helped us considerably and really seem to be dialed in on what the troops need. I don't remember the specifics and have not looked at the link yet, (headed to class) but if someone is trying to OBTAIN gear from this program they need to either be an 8541, or the equivalent thereof, OR know someone who is and is willing to write. We had two 8541's and were able to get enough kit to spread between the four team leaders (and then on down to the four teams - everyone got something!)

NOT a BAD deal.

I didn't mean to hijack your thread but while reading your first post the first that thing that came to my mind was that program. Thanks for posting some results they are getting in the field.

[Ender]

I didn't mean to hijack your thread but while reading your first post the first that thing that came to my mind was that program. Thanks for posting some results they are getting in the field.

Not at all! Every little bit is a contribution and I have gotten so many ideas from other quarters, in this thread, that I hardly consider it my own. I for one had corollary thoughts, on this subject from your post so it is all to the good.

[Ender]

If you're an undergrad it might be a little soon to be building a self standing curriculum but I'll help you with an outcome based learning objective course model when you're ready.

Sam,
I would love your help on something like this. I am an undergrad and may not have "need" for a model quite yet but I think it would be highly instructive for me and I could always come back and dust the template or work in progress off should I find a ready application.... I don't know if I am ready,(you tell me, what am I getting into lol?) but I do have the time and I definitely have the interest so....

We got a bit of the Marine Corps Mentoring Program pushed to us early in TBS (this year) (Lt. Col Shusko of the MACE was selling it wholeheartedly), and I have the guidebook from Nov 05 sitting in my stack of pubs. However, it is aimed more at personal traits and characteristics (leadership, honor courage commitment; personal finances) than warfighting topics.
It doesn't seem to be taken seriously, though, since I haven't heard squat about it since the second week of TBS, and the priors treated it as a bit of a joke, so I figure it hasn't really taken hold in the fleet.

Still, it is a framework, and one that is still pushed to junior officers in some limited manner.

mmx1,
I twice overheard my First Sergeant asking my Platoon Sergeant, a Gunny, about the status of the mentorship process between him and us, the team leaders. That same Gunny was constantly pushing mentorship on us in relation to our teams. I wonder how much of their inspiration came from something like what you mention here... basically a program that never got off the ground.

For what it is worth I can not measure how successful I, or any of the other team leaders were in the mentorship of our teams, but I can say to A MAN that our Gunny was EXTREMELY effective in mentoring us. He knew a lot and he taught it all, I owe so much to him. He didn't have to answer the questions the way he did, he didn't have to be so descriptive or explanatory but he drew a connection between his experiences and our pressing need to learn from them. I owe a great deal to many but I owe everything to this man. Ideally if I could I would want to duplicate this experience throughout the entire Corps and the DoD if I can only because I KNOW how much it helped and still helps me today.

Sure, I'll toss in an offer of help as well. I run a couple of servers and have my own Moodle site. If you want to play around with trying to set up a course, let me know and I'll build a basic page for you and let you play with it.

Marc,
That would be incredible! I would love to pursue this but have to admit that this is a new direction for me so the terminology and the basic processes may be foreign... but I learn quickly and I would work my ass off to put something viable together. I have been looking over the Marine sites and some of the Army Knowledge stuff and I am beginning to think that I may not need to invent a new wheel, but rather incorporate a new angle into systems that are already in place.

My two biggest questions are what should the OVERALL focus be and specifically what should the material include? Some suggestions I have:

A. An overall emphasis on the "No better friend, no worse enemy concept."

1. Half of the site or program is devoted to the "Friend" concept and would include a:
a. Focus on the United States of America and all things related- This includes enabling the service member to have a working knowledge of where he comes from, how we became who we are today and what makes our system different from say Marxism for instance.
b.Focus on Social Sciences- (Psych, Soc, Anthro etc...) These subjects are highly instructive on human behavior and go a long way in explaining similarities and differences and many of the "Whys?" we ask in a day.
c. Focus on Current Events and Cultural Awareness- Study three regions for X number of months, use no outright American sources and analyze their relative trends and tendencies and then tie it into the....
d.Focus on "History" - which provides a foundation for everything we see and do now.

The softer side of the program will attempt to fill in the blanks that home, high school, college, and general purpose life may not have provided.

[In essence, if this idea is starting to sound like a BA, it is not an accident, I foresee a program where a service member can earn a BA in military arts if they work hard enough... and I don't mean in their off time or when they are not deployed... I mean as part of their formal training process.]

2. The other half is geared towards the "Enemy" concept and would include:
a. Studies in historical battles - A module might include 20 pivotal battles (ranging progressively from smaller unit sized skirmishes to larger) and would entail having a 3-D "battle board" that is as accurate as possible, (similar to what are used for floor sized war games, or comparable to the "puff board" they have in CAS simulators... but not as large) and also physical, tangible "troops" that can be manipulated by the student. The lesson will take them through and step by step show moves and countermoves, what went right and what went wrong, what could be done differently, and would ask questions such as “What would you do differently? What would you do similarly? How would you deal with threat such and such given circumstance yada yada?" I know a number of guys who would give body parts to be able to actually witness Gettysburg (and *shudder* learn from it by osmosis whether they like it or not) but who would never pick up a ten page book on the subject. (I know the academies incorporate methods similar to this in some of their classes and would appreciate any insight or experiences from anyone connecting this to that.)
b. Increased focus in threat weapons and tactics- to include Dis. & Ass, live fire and implementation training (how they use it, with hands-on demonstrations in reconstructed enemy positions). eg: How an RPG-7 and an AT-4 are similar and how they are different and what that means in application to you on the battlefield. (Pubs are great but with the millions of AK's, RPK's, RPG's out there I don't see why every combat arms service member (AT LEAST) shouldn't be able to not only tell you everything inside and out about the enemies capabilities and liabilities but also show you… (See at this range, the groups are larger…so at X yards you are relatively safer from threat Y.) We can tell you 50 differences between the M16A1 and the M16A2 or the Glock 17 and the 19 (two very similar examples) but when it comes to the fundamental differences between an RPK and an AK (two completely different examples) "we" (hunters, NRA members, and all Marines over E-6 relax, I am not talking about you guys!) can only come up with a couple. This is unacceptable, we should know their weapons only slightly less than we know our own.
c. Studies on every single terrorist organization and rogue nation on the State Department or CIA’s hit list- I bet you if I had fifty guesses I could pick who our next attack or war would come from. This sounds like a no-brainer, and I am sure given fifty choices we all would be right but that is my point exactly, we KNOW where the main threats are, I mean over the last 20 some odd years we have been responding to the “Usual Suspects” and this is unlikely to change. Why do we wait until our usual enemy "#5" is pegging our fun meter to say "Let’s go kick some ass… and by the way start teaching the troops about #5 RIGHT AWAY!” This is bull####. Every E-5+ in the service should be able to tell you the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas and not have to receive a crash course two days out the next time we deploy into or just off the coast of Lebanon. We need to fix this and there is no excuse for the intel bubbas and the O's to be the only ones who know this stuff.

What I envision is not so much read this, write about that but more learn the theory from a series of case studies (from psychology, or American history, military history etc…) and then apply it in hand’s on exercises (How would you move your machine gun, weapons platoon, battalion etc? Ok show me…) that are reinforced with a “written” project that is submitted for "credit"- towards promotion for example. I like the dichotomy of friends and enemies and think that a system designed as such would be extremely flexible and therefore extremely palatable to both the civilian and martial sectors....

[Ender]

As a note, I would point out that the SWC itself is acting as a mentorship venue.

This is a truth that has not escaped me! I am like a kid in a candy store on here and can not imagine any other situation on the planet that would put me in such close proximity with so many great civil and military minds. This concept actually ties in nicely with where I want to go next with this too:

ON SWC, I have noticed that there are a number of professors, teachers, academics, SNCO’s, officers, diplomats, and all other brands and flavors of government employment. The total sum of experience shared on this site would have to add up into the millennia and I am not ignorant of the fact that many of the concepts I am wrestling with now have been kicked over before by some of the very minds I speak of now. So in the attempt at trying to come up with a solid mentorship plan for the military (at least on paper) and also wanting to groom and be groomed into an effective future leader I ask these questions of everyone here.

-If you had to build tomorrow’s “super soldier,” how would you do it? Tomorrow’s "super spy?"
-If you had to rebuild your own education, or career path how would you do it?
-What subjects do you feel are critical for tomorrow’s military leader? What classes did you take or subjects did you study that are considered as "irreplaceable" for your development?
- What formative books, games, movies etc… were influential in shaping your ideas and thoughts from childhood, to early adulthood to now?
-If you had to pick 10 historical battles to share with your troops what would they be and why?
-If you wanted to develop solid well-rounded civil leaders what areas would you want them to have a mastery of?

I am very curious to hear some of the concepts that you all feel are crucial and look forward to being blown away. Aside from that and more practically, I feel that a lot of what you have to offer could help me distill some of the more erratic (but still substantive) thoughts I have racing around into a cogent argument for a “mentorship program" that is not half-baked.

Even if this entire thing is simply an exercise in thought and Headquarters Marines Corps never adopts the Ender Method I will still have learned a great deal by trying to iron it all out so any insight or contribution is strongly welcomed!!

Joel

[marct]

Hi Joel,

Well, since you want a dissertation.....

Anyway, I'm tied up until tomorrow morning, so will take a stab at some of your questions, etc., then. I'l also toss up a course site for you to play with then. 'till tomorrow,

Marc