New course to train sailors in ground combat skills.LITTLE CREEK, Va. -- The Navy is planning to introduce a new training course designed to teach sailors how to fight on the ground. The expeditionary combat skills course will be an eight-week course required of all 40,000 sailors who are assigned to the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command The U.S. Navy established the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) in January 2006 to serve as a single functional command to centrally manage current and future readiness, resources, manning, training and equipping of the Navy’s expeditionary forces. . It will focus on four aspects of ground warfare: moving, shooting, communicating and administering first aid, says Capt. Robert McKenna Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P. (b. July 8 1927) is a Traditionalist Catholic Dominican bishop residing at ([1]) Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Monroe, Connecticut since 1973. , assistant chief of staff for training at NECC NECC National Educational Computing Conference NECC Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (Norfolk, VA) NECC Net-Enabled Command Capability NECC Northeast Mississippi Community College NECC North Equatorial Counter Current . "Sailors know how to survive on a ship. They know how to survive in an airplane. But most of them have never been in a situation where they're on the ground, maybe having to fight for their life," he says. "Our goal is to give them a basic level of training so that they can survive." For most sailors, the only combat skills training they ever receive is standing on the flight deck of a ship as it's steaming over the horizon, shooting a 9 mm gun, he says. Some ground units, such as the explosive ordnance disposal The detection, identification, on-site evaluation, rendering safe, recovery, and final disposal of unexploded explosive ordnance. It may also include explosive ordnance which has become hazardous by damage or deterioration. Also called EOD. teams and the naval construction force The combined construction units of the Navy, including primarily the mobile construction battalions and the amphibious construction battalions. These units are part of the operating forces and represent the Navy's capability for advanced base construction. Also called NCF. , already have their own basic combat training courses. The expeditionary combat skills course will standardize that training across the force. Initial plans indicate there may be two locations for the course, one on each U.S. coast. The Navy also is looking at Army and Marine Corps bases as options. Because of budget constraints, the course will be phased in over several years. McKenna says the goal is to have all NECC sailors going through the course by 2010 or 2011. A pilot course could come online next month, in time for the sailors in Riverine riv·er·ine adj. 1. Relating to or resembling a river. 2. Located on or inhabiting the banks of a river; riparian: "Members of a riverine tribe ... Squadron Three to participate. NECC's initiative makes sense, says Lt. Cmdr. Mike Egan, executive officer of Riverine Squadron One, which is deployed to Western Iraq. While the bulk of the unit's training came from the Marines at Camp LeJeune, its maritime interdiction operations Maritime Interdiction Operations were operations that took place in the Persian Gulf, during Operation Southern Watch. They took place between the end of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, until the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. team received some training from instructors at NECC.--GRACE JEAN |
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