As a leader do you feel that Land Navigation should be taken out from the Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development System (NCOPDS)?

It's a perishable skill. In college, i learned map reading (as it was called in those days) in ROTC (mandatory for two years at land grant colleges), in Geology, in basic and AIT and again in the advanced course. I still get confused. I read during WWI, the Air Force sorted those who grasp the international date line immediately to be navigators. Those who couldn't did something else. I belong to the latter group.

Take it out, put it back, take it out, put it back, on and on and on.

When I went to WLC they had taken it out, and have since put LandNav back in. Leave it in. I was Infantry at the time and occasionally would do LandNav training, so maybe I didn't miss much not doing it in WLC; however, more practice is good practice. Besides, what happens one day if GPS goes down and you don't know how to get from Point A to Point B with your DAGR? Sound improbably? Suppose GPS satellites are targeted in a future conflict with an adversary with the means to do it? Not so improbable to think GPS could be degraded or fully compromised.

It's not physically or mentally difficult to do nor is it a very time consuming task to learn. For many whose MOS don't generally require any use of LandNav, its good exposure.

I hate when I see posts like this, because I feel like the leadership courses should have MORE of it.
We need leaders capable of performing at the highest levels and without proficiency at tasks like land nav, how can you be expected to train soldiers and develop proficiency in your subordinates?

It would become even more of a necessary skill should we ever come face to face with a force on force conflict, and leaders should not only be proficient, but should be experts at the craft.

As the commandant of the Maneuver CoE NCOA which trains all Infantry and Armor ALC and SLC students (or owns the POIs that the National Guardsmen teach at RTIs), I can say that the ONLY reason we teach/assess on Land Navigation in NCOPDS is because the FORSCOM units don't. The original question is IF WE SHOULD TEACH IN NCOPDS and I say no, but we do obviously need to keep that individual skill at the forefront of all Leader's minds as a VERY perishable skill.
There are just sooo many institutional tasks that we should be spending more time on. Land Nav is a skill level 1 task and all Leaders need to get it on their training calendars-then fight like hell to actually conduct the training-despite the taskings, if your in recruiting, or whatever the excuse. EIB and ESB should not be the only time that units are doing land nav...our 22wk Infantry OSUT grads are coming out of Fort Benning extremely proficient in Land Nav, are their Leaders up to the same level of expertise?

SGM Billy Herrington I am concerned about your comment about never sending someone home for failing land nav, we should talk sometime. We have 25x 11-series ALC students retesting Land Nav on Fort Benning tomorrow, and that's about the average number per class. Plus we are not removing it from BLC, instead we are now certifying the learners on TEACHING this skill...core NCO function. Yes the STX is out.

CSM (Join to see) very good comments

They should remove "field day" from schools and change it to SERE ENE and basic land nav. The kids wont know the difference and they will have a ball while getting a good workout. To the ridiculous question, absolutely not. Land Nav may be a tad "old fashion" considering the day and age we live in..... until, of course, you actually need it.

I don’t think we should take it out. But I do think that the army as a whole needs to dive more into roles and responsibilities at each position. I say this because mentor ship in the army is (from my experience) almost completely unheard of these days. Not to mention since land navigation so the question, when are we as a force going to actually protect SGT’s time training again. I heard my old commander say this and I quote” I don’t mind stepping on SGT’s time training to get this online training done”. I knew in that moment that we have lost a very important part of leadership and training.

Why- I saw some NCO's who I would not let call for fire or navigate!

Hell no

What is the premise behind this question. Even with all of the worlds modern technology the roots of navigation will never fail you while hardware, software, satellites etc may not get you there. Life is rough when you navigate to a point that turns out to be in the wrong sector of the combat zone. Army Strong!!!

absolutely, positively NO!!!! being able to utilize a map. protractor, and compass is one of the most important skills you can ever learn - one EMP and all you have is your knowledge