Photo By Cpl. Alison Dostie | U.S. Marines with the Expeditionary Warfare School Blended Seminar Program pose for a...... read more read more
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U.S. Marine students with the Expeditionary Warfare School Blended Seminar Program graduated June 3 on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. EWS educates and trains company grade officers to prepare them mentally, morally, and physically for billets of increased responsibility across the Fleet Marine Force and the joint force, with an emphasis on the warfighting capabilities of a Marine Air Ground Task Force, operating within a complex and distributed naval expeditionary environment.
Overall, the program is broken down into three parts: there is an initial residence program, normally about four weeks, a non-residence lasting upwards of 12 weeks, and a final residency spanning six weeks. Because of COVID-19, the in-person portion of the latest iteration of the blended seminar had to be adjusted due to the constraints the pandemic caused.
“COVID-19 did not affect the ability for us to be able to instruct the students,” said Lt. Col. Eddie Utuk, the Expeditionary Warfare School Blended Seminar Program branch head at Camp Pendleton. “We just had to adjust the program to accommodate those COVID-19 restraints.”
Utuk, along with his staff, worked together in order to create and facilitate an environment where the students could still participate in the program. The initial month, which is normally in person, was conducted online during the latest iteration. It was only after conditions were deemed safe enough that students were brought together in the classroom for the last few weeks, according to Utuk.
Having adjusted the course to allow Marines to be trained to the best of their ability despite COVID-19, Utuk says the course will continuously change to not only follow COVID-19 guidelines, but to also coincide with the commandant’s planning guidance. With force design being a priority, Utuk and his staff constantly refer back to the planning guidance in order to meet the commandant’s intent.
Drawing comparisons to Wayne Gretsky, Utuk wants EWS students to skate in anticipation of where the puck will be. Or in this case, the adversaries they’ll face in the future.
“From my perspective, when you train, you train for known things; but when you educate, you educate for the unknown,” said Utuk. “We might not be able to absolutely predict what’s going to happen in 2030 or 2035, but based on our understanding on where that future is heading, and the competition space with our adversaries, we are trying to make sure we achieve intellectual overmatch with how we educate our officers.”
The officers are thought of as future MAGTF commanders and are taught to constantly be ahead of the curve and address complex situations with near-peer adversaries..
“These students have put in significant hours in training, teaching and learning,” said Utuk. “With this graduating class, we now provide the fleet with 47 company grade officers that are tactically efficient in their MOS, and in addition, a returned investment to their commands and the Marine Corps warfighting capabilities as a whole.”
| Date Taken: | 06.24.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 06.30.2021 13:50 |
| Story ID: | 399661 |
| Location: | CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 212 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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