When Dauntless Isn’t Enough: The Moral and Strategic Imperative to Fix America’s Close Combat...

"Time for a Joint Close Combat Leader Training Center

This center’s primary mission should be to certify America’s joint close combat leaders. This should be done by providing annually three 14-week long certification courses. This is slightly longer than Top Gun and almost half the length of the Air Force’s Weapons School. To ensure sufficient capacity for all of the services and key allied infantry leaders, each course should have space for 450 students, who, upon graduation, return to lead their pre-assigned units for a period of no less than two years. The center’s secondary mission should be to lead joint close combat experimentation efforts. These experimentation efforts can occur during the close combat leader certification courses and in the time periods between classes.

The center’s commanding general should be a follow-on assignment for the commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Bringing this level of experience and expertise to the mission is increasingly critical as the U.S. defense secretary continues to emphasize the need for Marine and Army close combat units to perform missions that have typically been thought of as falling in the domain of special operations. The general’s instructor cadre should comprise the most capable and successful non-commissioned and staff non-commissioned officer close combat leaders from across JSOC, SOCOM, the Marine Corps, the Army, and America’s closest allies’ military forces. An elite cadre of civilian personnel should support the commanding general by operating the command’s combat conditioning and health center, as well as the immersion simulation, additive manufacturing, and experimentation laboratory facilities."