A Simple Way to Lighten the Load
inds us that U.S. troops are overloaded with stuff they carry into battle. We nod our institutional heads and produce ever-heavier gear, calling it the cost of minimizing battlefield deaths. This discussion goes way back. I suspect that every generation of Marines has addressed the issue.In Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, summer 1969, we learned a formula for calculating how much weight a Marine could hump: one-third of body weight or 50 pounds, whichever was lighter. During follow-on training at the Basic School, lieutenants were taught to estimate weight for helicopter rides based on the assumption that an average Marine plus gear weighs 225 pounds. I still do not understand how this works out, given people’s different body masses.
In Southeast Asia, Murphy’s Law pretty much assured that the smallest guy in the platoon humped the radio (and extra batteries and a 60-mm mortar round, unless it was the machine gun and 200 rounds of ammo). I led both rifle and weapons platoons in those days, so had ample opportunity to overload my Marines.
Then and Now
When I was embedded with Marines in al Anbar Province almost 40 years and 7 wars later, our body armor and helmet weighed approximately 30 pounds. The additional basic load for troops was about 30 pounds, except for the squad automatic rifleman and whoever else was over-overloaded. Marines could easily exceed 70 pounds more than their body weight.
Because my team rode in vehicles most of the time, long-range humps were rare. However, my personal-security detachment troops were occasionally suited up (and standing or close patrolling) 12 hours a day. Grunts in the field had to be doing even more.
My OCS experience overlapped the era when Marines took salt pills for electrolyte replacement, as they did in World War II. Leon Uris’ classic World War II novel, Battle Cry, famously described these: “Suck ’em slow, or you’ll puke.” In my time we also thought “water discipline” meant hoarding, not drinking, during heavy physical activity, even in conditions of extreme heat.
In a long-ago Marine Corps Gazette article about downsizing the rifle company, the late Lieutenant Colonel Ed Robeson addressed what the loss of ammo humpers in a low-tech, infantry-centric, counterinsurgency (COIN) environment meant to relative firepower. His point still resonates: If you have fewer Marines to carry the load, you have to lighten it, or else spread too much across too few Marines. Either will reduce battlefield effectiveness.
I added commentary about load-bearing realities when, as the naval attaché in El Salvador, I chronicled experiences as a COIN warrior in that country’s insurgency (Gazette nine-part series, 1990). In the days I packed heavily, I was responding to a great mentor’s reconnaissance Marine philosophy: “It’s better to have it and not need it than the other way around.”
Absorbing the Lesson
When I learned to travel light, it was humping through El Salvador’s boondocks with Captain Marco Palacios, commander of that country’s Marine Infantry Battalion. Palacios’ lesson was as succinct: “You’re too heavy, Colonel. Drop that extra canteen; we’re surrounded by water, so two are enough. Leave half your grenades in the rear. Lose that emergency radio; trust our comm. And use our rations instead of MREs [meals, ready to eat]; it wouldn’t hurt you to lose a few pounds.” Ouch!
Palacios, a squad of his Marines, and I once spent a week in the field surviving on mud-dwelling shellfish, raw cashews, limes, and well water made safer by purification tablets. It wasn’t fun, and everyone on the mission lost weight. But we didn’t have trouble moving quickly, and no one got sufficiently dehydrated to affect mission accomplishment. There were no Cokes, Gatorade, Red Bull, Monster, or vitamin-water drinks to perk us up.
Those memories had faded when Marine Lieutenant Colonel Greg Poland introduced me to Jason Krause, chief executive officer of All Sports Endurance and creator of an electrolyte replacement substance called HyLytes. Poland had stumbled onto the product and understood its potential for fast-moving, light-traveling Marines. This was especially insightful, considering he’s a tanker by trade, accustomed to riding into battle.
In 2008 Krause agreed to supply me with HyLytes if I would test the product for potential use by U.S. troops. (In the interest of full disclosure: I have no financial interest in the company or its product, and receive no compensation. While testing HyLytes under a variety of extreme fitness conditions I received and shared with other athletes test doses free of charge.)
Over three years I used HyLytes to the exclusion of other products for electrolyte replacement during and after extreme physical-fitness activities in a variety of climates, and in COIN missions in Iraq. Exercise included one- and half-hour interval runs in temperatures ranging from 12 to 109 degrees Fahrenheit; two-hour conditioning hikes in Iraq’s al Anbar province wearing physical-training (PT) gear with standard-issue body armor; and various weight-lifting, stretching, pull-up, abdominal, and heavy-punching-bag drills. Routine missions in Iraq included 6–18 hour days of combined walking, meetings, and travel in armored vehicles; wearing a flight suit, body armor, and helmet; and events punctuated by PT sessions.
Lighter Electrolytes
During those years I did not use Gatorade, PowerAde, or water-soluble powders. Despite harsh climatic conditions and reasonably tough (by senior-citizen standards) PT activities, I had no symptoms of heat/dehydration/electrolyte-depletion injuries. This is not a reflection of superior conditioning or prowess, but the result of using a superior electrolyte replacement solution delivered through plain water.
As a long-time fan of Gatorade, I was initially skeptical of Krause’s claim that his product was better. I was also concerned that it might ring a substance-abuse warning bell. I was wrong on both counts. HyLytes has been OK’d by the National Science Foundation International’s “Certified for Sport” program (www.nsfsport.com). This means it can be used during training and competing in the Olympics.
With respect to comparative results and ease of use vis-à-vis similar products, I found HyLytes to be superior for the following reasons:
• It is so concentrated and lightweight that a month’s supply can be packed in a utility-trouser cargo pocket.
• Because it is in a capsule, the “wrong dose” cannot be taken by spilling granules or powder outside a water bottle.
• Tasteless and calorie-free, the capsule is swallowed with water (on the run, if necessary).
• It requires no special bottling, takes almost no space, and mixes with water, the one other element (besides air) essential to survival.
• It works within minutes of ingestion. During testing I replaced meals with HyLytes and water, stretching into the next leg of extreme weather workout with no solid food or other liquid supplement.
Electrolyte depletion doesn’t occur only because of heavy sweating during PT or combat stress. It can result from any activity that induces heavy body-fluid loss. During one week of my Iraq experience, most of our provincial-reconstruction-team members got food poisoning. Dehydration was swift and serious for some. Part of the rapid-recovery regimen was electrolyte replacement via HyLytes, supplemented by water.
The Marine Corps has come a long way since the suck-’em-slow-or-puke days. However, during my time in Iraq, we were packing mess halls and armored vehicles with high-calorie, sugar-laden, easy-to-taste-and-discard electrolyte-replacement drinks augmented by energy drinks. There may be a better way to keep troops hydrated and alert.
My experience with HyLytes is anecdotal, so I cannot say for certain it’s the best electrolyte replacement available. I do recommend that the Navy and Marine Corps initiate tests of HyLytes’ potential effectiveness. Simple, inexpensive, relatively non-intrusive comparisons of this to other commercially available products could easily be carried out at Quantico’s warfighting lab, OCS, Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, the Recon Indoctrination Program, and Marine Corps Special Operations Command screening. An insignificant dollar investment and a summer of testing could yield extremely valuable, long-term results for our habitually overloaded warfighters.
Rethinking Marine Corps Training
Even though the information age is transforming the way knowledge is acquired and shared, Marine Corps formal schools have not yet made use of new instructional methodologies. Specifically, online communities of practice (COP) can enhance learning. In emphasizing training and equipped Marines, Commandant General James Amos’ guidance prioritizes the best tools available to develop unmatched skills. Online COPs can help with this.
New Tools for New Times
The Marine Corps 2025 Vision and Strategy document states: “We must train and educate Marines at all levels on the challenges and opportunities presented by the Information Age so that it becomes inherent in everything we do.”1 With the constant evolution of technological advancements, and the fact that the Marine Corps population is the youngest of the four services, this new generation prefers to learn differently from previous ones.
Mechanisms should be available for individual learners to personalize their interaction with the content as well as with fellow students.2 As it is now, Marine Corps training in formal schools is not designed for either of these activities outside the classroom, even for refresher and advanced learning. COPs provide the bridge between structured and unstructured education. For adult students, self-directed learning is most effective, and this population wants to be able to access the right information when needed.3 By itself, training cannot fulfill all a student’s needs. In the broader set of solutions required, COP can become an institutionalized tool.4
Apply the Research
In the Military Academic Skills Program, my recent mixed-methods, grounded-theory study used a sequential exploratory strategy of qualitative interviews with a quantitative survey to address one question: From the adult-student perspective, what is needed in the area of learning fundamentals and assistance from the Marine Corps that would improve academic success? The top three requests point to the imperative of using formal online COP:
• Training materials available online, without having to hunt to find or ask another Marine
• Content and curriculum updated to reflect current training
• Particular learning styles accommodated with a better mix of teaching methods
The following percentages of students participating in the quantitative survey strongly agreed or agreed with these statements:
• 95.65 percent enjoy using the Internet.
• 69.56 percent would like 24/7 availability of an online COP containing all their training content or material.
• 69.56 percent would like the availability of online COP for access to subject-matter experts, instructors, and current and former Marines for information exchanges.
• 82.60 percent would appreciate online outlines to help capture the important points of each of their courses when not in the classroom.
• 73.91 percent would have accessed the required competencies online, prior to formal school, had a Web address been included in their orders.
These students are from a new generation, and their styles of learning should be a powerful indicator that methods need to be changed. They prefer to use technology in their academic endeavors, and they are comfortable with it. Their performance can be improved through COP.5
Manageable Technicalities
The Marine Corps has the accessibility of SharePoint, an online content-management system that can house these COP. Currently, though not by mandate, Motor Transport Occupational Field 35 uses the site for all information that affects the community. SharePoint is an ideal example of how to employ an existing Marine Corps online community as an occupational-field main COP.
Developed in February 2008, the site is championed by Chief Warrant Officer 5 Herbie Morris, senior Motor Transport Occupational Field advocate/sponsor at Marine Corps Installations and Logistics Headquarters. The community concept evolved from one of Morris’ previous assignments in a formal school, where it developed from an e-mail distribution list. When the school received more than one related question, the responses were distributed by e-mail. “Whenever someone doesn’t know something, they call the school house,” Morris explained. “If you keep getting asked the same questions over and over, you need to have a place to post it once to house the replies.”6 The lag time between the fielding of new equipment and the updated formal training also became an issue. By creating a community through SharePoint, Morris provided a home base for frequently asked questions and the gapped training content, which result from the time it takes for a program of instruction to be officially approved and distributed by the Training and Education Command.
All Marines belonging to the Motor Transport Occupational Field now have an authoritative, trustworthy, shared place for training and education materials and subject-matter experts. The online COP has become so popular that two school houses with administrator rights weekly report their seat availabilities directly to the site, which means they reach the entire community. With this type of participation, students can reach out to subject-matter experts, instructors, and other Marines as they pursue both learning and academic achievements.
COP can fill the void of technology-deficient formal schools and today’s student who seeks updated ways to learn. The data from this study should be used to increase training through online opportunities such as this. COP should be an official additive to future requirements and directives.
Keep Them Engaged
As one senior instructional-systems specialist noted: “If you keep training exciting, retention is better. Technologies have given us the ability to reinforce knowledge, skills, and abilities and become more efficient.”7 COP can provide stimulating and self-directed learning to reinforce Marines’ studies.
They are not currently mandated through Navy or Marine Corps orders, but an overarching online community of practice should be developed in conjunction with each occupational field and military occupational specialty. With formal online COP usage to supplement training, Marines can refresh content, have discussions, and collaborate as they learn. They will have an authoritative, trustworthy home base in which to participate, regardless of their location.
Those charged with requirements should consider the advantages this could provide for students. If communities of practice are adopted as a standard, SharePoint can provide the tools to build them immediately. Content should be provided by the formal schools to be housed in the COP, and test results indicating the need for constant remediation or clarification should also be incorporated. One student summed up the implications of this study by opining that adding official online COP would lead to a “smarter, stronger, more prepared Marine for a lot more engagements to come.”
1. James T. Conway, Marine Corps Vision and Strategy 2025, PCN 50100654800. (Washington, DC: U.S. Marine Corps, 2007), p. 19.
2. Chris Howard, “Meeting the Demand for Learning On-Demand,” OutStart webinar, 2008, http://www.outstart.com/resource-center-recorded-webinars.htm.
3. M. Pohl, M. Rester, K. Stockelmayr, J. Jerlich, P. Judmaier, F. Reichl, and E. Obermuller, “Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning and Vocational Training: Adapting the Technology to the Learners’ Needs,” Universal Access in the Information Society 7, no. 4 (2008): p. 262.
4. M. Rosenberg, Beyond e-Learning: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Performance (San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2006).
5. T. Fogarty, “The Millennial Lie,” Issues in Accounting Education 23, no. 3 (2008): 369–71. C. Gorelick, N. Milton, and K. April, Performance through Learning: Knowledge Management in Practice (Burlington, MA: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004). A. McAlister, “Teaching the Millennial Generation,” American Music Teacher 59, no. 1 (2009): pp. 13–15.
6. Herbie Morris, personal communication, 28 April 2010.
7. K. Scott, personal communication, 30 April 2010.
Dr. Stephens, an instructional-systems specialist serving as a Manpower, Personnel, and Training lead at Marine Corps Systems Command, is assigned to PG15, Ground Transportation and Engineer Systems. With a doctorate of education in administrator leadership, she based this article on her thesis. She has worked with the Marine Corps and Navy for 25 years in training and knowledge management.
Tightening the Belt in Lean Years
Leading in wartime provides its fair share of challenges. The operational tempo stays high, and ships deploy more often to combat zones. The surface fleet is taxed with not only anti-piracy operations and exercises with allies, but also supporting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sailors, their families, ships, and equipment are all under pressure. So an end to major combat operations in Afghanistan should be a breath of fresh air, right?
On the contrary, over the next few years this new paradigm will prove equally vexing to Navy leadership. A “peacetime” environment will bring its own challenges for the surface-warfare community and the officers who lead it. Anticipating these problems and addressing them fully requires studying history and understanding the present.
One common theme is the shrinking budget. As Congress tightens the belt around the Department of Defense, the Navy will have to find ways to fulfill its mission while spending money more efficiently. In many ways, these issues are common in all warfare areas, in all branches of the military. Some are specific to the Navy or to the surface-warfare community. All require our attention.
Shop More Wisely
The Navy must revamp its acquisition policies, and personnel involved in the process must look skeptically at claims from defense contractors. Newer technology will not solve the money problems. In fact, if it is poorly procured and implemented, it will exacerbate them. The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is a prime example of machinery mistakenly used to, supposedly, lower long-term costs. It was developed on the premise that a newer system would be more expensive but would save more in the long run.
In this way it is not uncommon: many procurement programs begin with this kind of promise. But the LCS fails to deliver. General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin may claim that it is a revolution in naval warfare, with its replaceable mission modules and its flexibility. Fielding a crew of only 75, it was supposed to save immensely on costs. But the Navy did not anticipate high procurement costs and difficulties in training personnel.
The initial unit estimate was $200 million. This was in a bid for a cost-plus contract, which shifts all risk to the Navy. Naturally, it underestimated the future consequences of current decisions. Now, six years later, that pricetag has risen to $460 million for the ship alone. The mission modules, which would make it useful, are lagging.
The LCS program illustrates that future surface-warfare officers must prepare to lead sailors who are burdened with even more duties and assignments. Now that the ship is being manned, the Navy is realizing that training 75 sailors to use the modules, which allegedly cover nearly all the missions a surface ship can perform, is nearly impossible. The Navy must look realistically at the procurement process for newer systems if it is to remain effective in a new environment.
Sailors will work with what they are provided, but acquisition personnel must focus on systems that are effective, available, and affordable. The Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates may be older, but they are inexpensive and have proven capable in counternarcotics and maritime-interdiction operations. If the Navy were to buy a newer and modernized version of the Perry, it would have a useful surface platform that could perform all the missions of the LCS.
Train for a Greater Load
Forecasts for defense funding look bleak, yet the Navy continues to buy new destroyers and amphibious transport docks and still plans to buy newer amphibious-assault ships and aircraft carriers. Consequently, cost increases will eventually exceed budget growth. Preventive maintenance and training will have to be stressed to avoid failures of systems whose repairs the Navy cannot afford.
Decreased funding over the next few years will also inevitably affect training and readiness. As the wars wind down and funding decreases, ships will spend less time under way, which means there will be fewer opportunities to conduct underway training. Qualifying for newer watches will take longer, and retaining older skills and information will become more difficult for officers and enlisted in the surface-warfare community.
How, then, can the Navy remain ready? To compensate for this lack of time under way, training during those periods will become more intense. Careful planning from the division level up must be made to ensure that not a day at sea is wasted. As training gears up, sailors’ endurance will be tested.
Disseminate a Sense of Purpose
Morale will be an even greater concern in the lean years. As stated, sailors will be taxed more heavily and will have greater demands placed on them. There is also the potential for lower morale as ships spend less time under way.
At first this may seem counterintuitive. If sailors are under way less and with their families more often, won’t their spirits be higher? In some ways, yes, but morale is also related to one’s sense of self-worth; in this case, what one contributes to national defense. In wartime this is not as much of an issue. As Admiral Arleigh Burke put it: “This ship is built to fight; you’d better know how.”
In wartime there is an overall sense of purpose. Sailors who joined after 9/11 have been more likely to visualize themselves as being in the conflict. Though they generally are more detached from the fight on the ground, emphasizing the ship’s importance to the mission has been much easier. A sailor can say, “I am on this ship that is supporting my comrades in arms on the ground.”
When the state of war no longer exists, this need for readiness is no longer obvious. Therefore, leaders in the surface fleet will have to emphasize the importance of their mission and the need to be prepared. For almost ten years the Navy has been supporting combat operations, and sailors have the underway time to show for it. This means that many are accustomed to the operational tempo and deployment schedules of combat operations and may feel a lack of purpose when there is no war to fight.
Leadership in the lean years requires constant communication about how the ship can do things better, and also about why it is essential that it does so. This way, a clear purpose and mission will be conveyed. The Navy will continue to conduct anti-piracy operations, ballistic-missile defense, and training for potential conflicts; these facts need to be emphasized so that personnel have a sense that what they are doing produces real results for the nation. The slump in funding can, but should not, lead to a slump in morale.
The tight years ahead will undoubtedly raise more challenges than the few listed here. Whether they come from training, procurement, or lack of time at sea, the solution does not lie in new technology. It lies in strong leadership.
Newer systems alone will not make a ship faster, more efficient, or more capable. The sailors who use them must be trained. Deficiencies in this area are solved by schools, not newer, flashier combat systems. The Navy, to remain effective in this time of belt-tightening, must focus more on its people or risk becoming a high-tech force with few who are ready to use it.