Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany

Corporals seeking to enhance their leadership skills attended two weeks of knowledge-based classroom learning as well as rigorous outdoor maneuvers during the Corporal’s Course recently held at Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany.

Roughly twenty of “the few, the proud” gathered for the training, which is designed to educate young noncommissioned Marines on ‘Corps values’ as it relates to leadership.

Capt. Jose Castillo, inspector instructor, Detachment 2, Supply Company, MCLB Albany, discussed the overall purpose of the corporal’s training.

“The course is designed to instill leadership traits into the young corporals – the noncommissioned officers,” Castillo said. “All twenty students are (either) active-duty corporals as well as reserve corporals. Over the past two-week period, they’ve learned a lot about basic rifleman tactics, how to lead a fire team, along with the ways and types of leadership and how small-unit leaders should (respond/react) at the fire team level.”

Braving the elements of extreme heat, pesky gnats and other potential slithering critters, the Marines teams took to the woods with their maps and compasses in search of predetermined destinations and areas they were required to locate during the land navigation course requirement.

“The land navigation component of the training was to teach them the basics of how to get from one point to another; how to move equipment from one point to another and at the same time keeping track of the team/personnel they’re with,” Castillo explained.

Although corporals participating in the course, here, took the initiative and signed up for the training, it will become a requirement, in fiscal year 2016, for all NCOs “to have resident Professional Military Education,” according to Castillo.