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STATEMENT
OF FOR
MANPOWER AND RESERVE AFFAIRS HEADQUARTERS,
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS BEFORE
THE OF
THE UNITED
STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 9
SEPTEMBER
1999 Mr. Chairman, and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on Benefits. It is indeed a pleasure to appear before you today and express our strong support for America’s veterans, and for the many initiatives ongoing to help them translate the skills they gain from their military service and their off duty education experiences into credentials that will help them achieve success when they rejoin the civilian world. Making Marines and Winning Battles Mr. Chairman, the Marine Corps is America’s 911 Force in Readiness. Your Marines must be ready to protect the nation’s interest when America is least ready. That is why our primary job is twofold -- making Marines and winning battles. Our unique calling requires us to maintain a somewhat younger force in our junior enlisted ranks to accomplish our mission. Every year we recruit young men and women who want to be Marines; those we believe with the potential to be truly exceptional. We inculcate the Marine Corps values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment at our Boot Camps, where they experience the Crucible. They train, deploy, and during their term of service they learn valuable skills and contribute greatly to the success of our Corps. At the end of first term enlistment, many of them return to the civilian world, and we believe we send a better man or woman back to society than we recruited. Every year, Mr. Chairman, we return approximately 40,000 young men and women to the civilian world. We value their service to the Corps and to the country, and believe we are doing much to help ease their transition from the Marine Corps to a successful civilian life. 21st Century Readiness Demands More of Marines Mr. Chairman, I am certain that you are aware that the nature of military service has changed dramatically in recent years. The advent of new technologies and warfighting doctrines and techniques require us to recruit and train in different and more intensive ways than before. There is far more intellectual and judgmental rigor demanded of our Marines today than ever before. The Marine Corps speaks of the need for the “strategic Corporal” on the 21st Century battlefield. This is simply to say that the nature of tomorrow’s battlefield will require enlisted Marines to make strategic, operational, and in many cases moral choices which were formerly only made by more senior officers. This is why, Mr. Chairman, the Marine Corps insists on Professional Military Education for all Marines and encourages the pursuit of Life Long Learning in all ranks. The skills Marines gain serve them well while on active duty and afterwards, when they are in civilian life. I must stress here, Mr. Chairman, that we do this in support of our mission; that is, we train to the mission. What we have done beyond this is to put in place a number of programs that help our Marines gain academic and technical recognition for their military experience and training and offer them off-duty educational opportunities for personal growth. Recognizing Job Skills Supports Marines The Marine Corps has not come late to the table, Mr. Chairman, in recognizing the most valuable way we can both help the Marine Corps develop Marines and help Marines transition into civilian life. We, as a military service, need to assist separating Marines in defining and emphasizing those skills they have learned while on active duty. Since 1977, we have worked in conjunction with the Department of Labor (DoL) Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training to implement a nationally recognized apprenticeship program which leads to a Certificate of Apprenticeship recognizing the attainment of journeyman status. Our Apprenticeship Program documents active duty learning experiences that contribute to achieving journeyman status, improves performance through personal and professional motivation, provides Marines with trade skills with continuing education opportunities, and gains civilian recognition for skills acquired during a Marine’s period of active duty. Currently there are a total of 27 military occupational specialties (MOS’s) identified as apprenticeable in the Marine Corps program. There are another 27 under review, therefore we believe we will have a total of 54 identified in the near future. Licensing and certification opportunities for active duty Marines are made available through the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) National Certification Program. DANTES has agreements with a number of nationally recognized professional agencies which allow their certification examinations to be administered at our base Marine Corps Community Services Lifelong Learning Centers. Currently, there are certification exams available in six fields; Automotive Service, Food Protection, Surgical Technologist, Computing, Fiber Optics Installer, and Certified Technical Trainer. We are currently working on approaches to resource the remaining 28 certification examinations supported by DANTES. We provide information on this valuable program to Marines in a number of ways. In addition to printed information, such as DANTES Certified Professional brochures, test examiners at our MCCS Lifelong Learning Centers provide important information and encouragement. The program is promoted in our base newspapers, and Marines are encouraged to learn more from the DANTES web site as well. Because of increased emphasis and interest in the Apprenticeship Program, the Marine Corps is working with the Navy to develop joint apprenticeship initiatives that will create a benchmark program for Sailors and Marines. Through partnership with the Navy National Apprenticeship Program (NNAPS), the program will be automated to increase its availability and accessibility to Marines wherever they are stationed and greatly increase the number of Marines who register for and successfully complete the program. We are confident that these efforts will result in Marines with better job skills that they can use while on active duty and take with them into civilian life. I would be remiss if I did not point out to the Subcommittee that the Marine Corps has been working together with our sister services and other agencies to improve these services and programs. The Marine Corps is an active participant in the Interagency Task Force on Certification and Licensing of Transitioning Military personnel. This task force, led by the Departments of Labor and Veterans’ Affairs, was established to identify existing credentialing opportunities and determine the most effective methods for assisting service members. The task force has been a catalyst for a number of other actions, such as: the Marine Corps agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to study expanded licensure opportunities for service members; Marine Corps and Navy coordination with the Office of Personnel management (OPM) requesting their review of the services apprenticeship programs for consideration in hiring for Federal Government positions; and establishment of a joint military apprenticeship work group which includes a representative from all four military branches and DoL’s Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a DoD-wide apprenticeship program. Although
many Marine Corps service schools and the Aviation Occupational
Specialties have already been evaluated by ACE for academic credit,
the majority of MOSs have not been evaluated because of the lack of a
standardized assessment tool. To
address this issue, the
Marine Corps has established the Military Academic Credit Examination
(MACE) program, which will provide an academically acceptable
instrument for assessment of knowledge gained through occupational
learning experiences in the Marine Corps.
MACE will be available to smooth the path for those Marines who
want to earn additional college credit through the testing process. Military Skills -- College Credit Another important new partnership between the Navy and Marine Corps is the Sailor/Marine Council on Education Registry Transcript (SMART) program. SMART transcripts document military education and training and enables their validation by the American Council on Education (ACE). Academic credit recommendations may then be submitted directly to a college or university for college credit. ACE produces the most widely accepted reference for college credit recommendations for service schools and service experience. The program’s technology is being developed by the Naval Education and Training Professional Development and Technology Center (NETPDTC), and we will begin verifying Marines’ SMART record data in just a few more weeks. When ACE endorses the validity of SMART, transcripts will be made available to all active duty Marines in FY00. Records will be archived for all Marines separating after 1 October 1999, so that transcripts can be produced for veterans on demand. We will carefully watch results, which we believe will result in a significant number of Marines gaining college credit for their training and duty experiences. Sending young men and women into civilian life armed with recognition for their active duty experiences and training is one of the best ways we can thank them for their service, by giving them the tools to succeed and thrive in the civilian world. I would also mention a second benefit, Mr. Chairman. Marines will appreciate this level of support, and their appreciation will translate into positive recollections of the Corps to their families, friends and acquaintances, which we believe will assist our future recruiting efforts. The Importance of Transition Services As you know, Mr. Chairman, the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1991 recognized the importance of a successful transition from military to civilian life by establishing the Transition Assistance Management Program (TAMP) to support the transition of all eligible separating or retiring service members and their families. To properly document the separating member’s experience and training skills, the Department of Defense (DoD) developed the Verification of Military Experience and Training (VMET) document, DD Form 2586. Each separating service member is supplied with a VMET document 180 days before their separation. The content of the VMET is determined by the member’s military work experience and training. Descriptions of military occupations held and courses attended are defined; with college credits that the American Council on Education (ACE) has recommended for those courses is also included. I should note that, while ACE evaluates these courses and occupations, it does not endorse the VMET document as an official “transcript-like” document.. Because of this deficiency in the VMET document, the fact that VMET was never intended as an academic qualifier, the Marine Corps Transition Program provided seed money to develop the SMART program to provide the service member with a record of the academic credits earned on active duty as a means of helping these Marines gain employment or enhanced credits for higher education. SMART, which is focused on obtaining academic credit, is intended to complement VMET, which is employment-oriented, designed to help the separated service member obtain employment. That said, the VMET is designed to work in conjunction with other transition services and as a tool for obtaining employment upon separation. It can be used to develop a professional resume, to assist in completing job applications, and to help a prospective employer assess job skills and abilities of a veteran job applicant. To support this effort, the VMET document “translates” the military language describing experience and training into civilian vernacular. The VMET can, in some instances, be used to obtain certain licenses and certifications. In recognition of the need to make transition assistance programs more accessible and usable to separating Marines, the Marine Corps is working with our sister services and the Defense Manpower Data Center to reengineer the document and make it more comprehensively helpful, with 24/7 Internet access. Life Long Learning Model As I said earlier, Mr. Chairman, changes in the nature of the force and in the nature of how the Marine Corps expects to fight our nation’s battles in the 21st Century have caused us to focus a considerable effort on educating and training Marines. In January, we created a new quality of life organization for the Marine Corps, Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS). MCCS merged our libraries and Voluntary Education programs into a vital Lifelong Learning resource for Marines and their families. Voluntary Education (VOLED) programs have historically focused on off duty academic programs delivered in base/station education centers by colleges in a traditional classroom setting. VOLED programs frequently are not co-located with libraries, learning resource centers, or training facilities making it necessary for a Marine to visit several locations to address all of his or her learning requirements. With the merge of Library programs and Voluntary Education programs, we have taken the first step to serving our Marines with an integrated one-stop shopping concept for lifelong learning requirements. Options have been identified to maximize resources, eliminate duplication, and improve patron access to services. Internet access in our installation libraries will assist education program participants in conducting research. Standardization of education service agreements will ensure libraries are receiving resource support from our academic institutions. The Vision 2005 goal is to establish a consolidated center for all learning; professional and academic. Marines will have one destination for enrollment in a college program, access to research tools such as books, periodicals, the Internet, basic skills enhancement, and nonresident courses for professional or academic requirements. Our lifelong learning centers will also deliver programs through technology via the Marine Corps Satellite Education Network (MCSEN), Internet, and CD ROM. Conclusion Mr. Chairman, I believe that you can tell from my testimony that the Marine Corps is deeply committed to the intellectual and academic development of our Marines. There are two major benefits; the Corps gains a more effective active duty Marine and our society gains a more productive citizen upon that Marine’s transition to civilian life. Our philosophy in this regard is simple: first, we gain a more intellectually able and effective force, better equipped mentally and morally to accomplish the mission; second, we return a veteran to society equipped to succeed as a civilian as he or she has succeeded as a Marine. Our goal, and this should be clear to everyone, is to take that training and experience needed to accomplish the Marine Corps mission and create ways to recognize the value of those skills and abilities to comparable jobs in the civilian sector. By this measure, service to country can have a major value for our young men and women; value that benefits both the Nation and its veterans. Subject to any questions you may have, Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks. Back to Witness List |