Land Navigation!

This is coolbert:

"the cheating was actually more widespread than this incident would indicate."

This headline startles? Thanks to StrategyPage for the lead!

"USMC Fires Officers For Cheating"

"May 28, 2010: The U.S. Marine Corps recently discharged 13 recently commissioned 2nd lieutenants, for cheating on a land navigation test. With GPS available for over two decades, young officers going through their post-commissioning training frequently cheat on the navigation field test (using compass, maps and dead reckoning to find ammo cans in a wilderness)."

"Marine commanders point out that GPS can be jammed, and officers have to be ready to do without it . . . Cheating . . . demonstrates that the officer is unreliable . . . The marines expects more from its officers."

OH MY!

Comments:

* All officers and NCO's in the U.S. military must possess a good knowledge of land navigation. Must pass a test, move cross-country, land navigate during the ordinary training and leadership courses requisite for promotion and qualification.

* Land navigation in my experience has been the # 1 failing for those folks not able to make the grade as an officer or as a NCO! NOT able to master map reading and land navigation means no promotion and possibly discharge.

* GPS may be jammed, your GPS unit may not work, or the batteries may go dead at the wrong moment. A multiplicity of things can go wrong. AND WE SHOULD NOT PRECLUDE THE POSSIBILITY THAT AT SOME FUTURE DATE AN ENEMY ENGAGING IN CYBER-WARFARE WILL INTRUDE INTO THE GPS SYSTEM AND BE ABLE TO ISSUE FALSE NAVIGATIONAL SIGNALS!!

* I guess that traditional map reading and land navigation are therefore still a basic subject for study in the military. GPS has NOT made the map, the compass, the ruler, the edged paper with markings obsolete?

* Some years ago now, during his infamous television diatribe, the then Commandant of the Marines, General Mundy, described the inability of some officers [?] to do well at land navigation: "they don't follow a course on the ground from a map as well"

* Maybe being a Marine officer is more difficult than getting into Harvard Law School? This too has been suggested. Well, that the Marines expect A LOT from their officers is worthy, and that standards are being maintained is worthy too. Unreliability in an officer is not sustainable!!

coolbert.