MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- “Every Marine is a rifleman.” These words echo throughout recruit training and remain engraved on Marines’ memory throughout their career.
Regardless of military occupational specialty, Marines are considered riflemen first and must qualify annually with a service rifle.
Around 60 Marines took the first step in providing the Marine Corps with combatready Marines by taking the two-week Combat Marksmanship Coach course here Sept. 14 – 24.
“The one thing I’m looking forward to the most is making experts,” said Lance Cpl. Luis A. Zabala, Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron S-3 training and course participant. “The mission of the combat marksmanship coach is to teach and evaluate combat marksmanship and make combat-ready Marines.”
Okinawa’s military training unit approves the CMC course curriculum here.
Logistically, sending Marines to Okinawa to take the course would be extremely costly for the Marine Corps. For this reason, the CMC course here was developed to train Marines to be marksmanship coaches based on Okinawa’s Training and Education Command curriculum.
The course here is a two-week-long course, unlike Okinawa’s three-week course, where Marines are trained through lecture, practical application and qualification.
“You get Power Point, you get practical application, and eventually you get to go to the range, (qualify) and actually apply the fundamentals taught to you,” said Zabala.
The first week of the course Marines are trained how to coach proper marksmanship with the rifle and exercise intermediate combat marksmanship.
The second week Marines learn how to coach pistol and get hands-on practical application by coaching fellow training coaches during pre-qualification and qualification.
The final day of the course Marines must pass a final examination before successfully completing the course.
Once the Marines here complete the CMC course, their certificate of completion is approved and signed off by Okinawa’s TECOM.
This certification qualifies the Marines to coach on all pistol and rifle qualification ranges.
“Units still need people to be SDOs, and SDOs have to be armed with 9mm pistols, so SDOs need to have a qualification,” said Sgt. Daniel M. DeCarvalho, Indoor Small Arms Range operations chief here. “If you don’t have Marines trained to coach them in the qualification, they can’t qualify.”
For a shooting line to be effective, one coach is required for every four shooters, and with an average of around 300 Marines qualifying on a range at a time, the absence of coaches is detrimental for units having their Marines properly trained.
To be eligible for the CMC course, Marines must complete the Marine Marksman Course on www.marinenet.usmc.mil, have an up-todate rifle qualification and have at least one year left on station.
It is recommended for Marines to take the course because it offers several benefits.
“A lot of Marines come here without a pistol badge, and upon completion of the course, not only do they get a pistol qualification, they get a secondary MOS on top of the pistol qualification, and they help their units by providing coaches, so that’s a triple benefit for coming to this course,” said DeCarvalho.
Qualifying Marines is the overall goal of the combat marksmanship coach, but by practicing coaching the fundamentals, the Marines also get to improve their own shooting techniques.
“It teaches you the fundamentals and what to look for and teaches you the common mistakes so you don’t make them yourself,” said Zabala.
Many of the Marines agreed the knowledge they obtained from the course can be used on and off the shooting range.
“As a grunt, I know being able to shoot is very important,” said Zabala. “Being able to teach these fundamentals and learning teaching techniques, it actually helps me out for whenever I go back to a grunt unit so that I can teach my Marines how to properly shoot even though we won’t be on a range.”
Eligible Marines interested in signing up for the March 7 CMC course should contact their unit’s S-3 office.